


earning it back

by sassymajesty



Series: bought, owned, earned [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Family Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-01-31 12:06:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 96,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12681564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassymajesty/pseuds/sassymajesty
Summary: It’s been six years since she walked out on Lexa, knowing she had broken her heart, knowing she would cry and mull over the words she had said, words that were too hard, words she didn’t have the right to say, words Lexa didn’t deserve to hear. It’s been six entire years and Clarke had never expected Lexa to wait for her, but something inside of her coils tightly when she thinks that she might never be able to make Lexa understand how much she changed her life, willingly or not, knowingly or not.She owes it to herself to knock on Lexa's door and wait and pray she will let her get the words out before all hell breaks loose, before she kicks and screams and punches Clarke like she’s pretty sure Lexa wants to - if she were Lexa she’d want her head on a stick.Gritting her teeth so hard she’s half afraid of grinding them to dust, Clarke raises her fist and knocks on the door.





	1. of art galleries and little kids

**Author's Note:**

> The [bargaining for more](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8072155/chapters/18496390) sequel.
> 
> It takes place a little ways down the road from where we left, and this will be all from Clarke's POV. Rating will change as the chapters come. It starts pretty painful, but I promise you that a good two thirds of the story will be nothing but fluff and happiness for our two girls! :') I hope you enjoy it, and let me know what you think of it so far!

kintsukuroi [金繕い]: (n.) (v. pfr.) " _to repair with gold_ "; the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.

* * *

In the staring contest she’s having with the door, Clarke is clearly the one losing.

It’s been - she checks the watch on her wrist - almost twelve minutes since she worked up the courage to climb out of her car and walk up the driveway. And that was after a good half hour willing her stomach to stop doing backward somersaults - it still hasn’t, but she figured it wouldn’t, not tonight, not before she did what she had come here to do anyway.

Now she stares at the door, following the pattern that the wood grain forms and wondering how much longer she can get away with standing in the small front porch after dark before someone in the neighborhood calls the cops on her.

It’s a really nice neighborhood, something she can’t even dream to afford anymore, but Clarke hadn’t expected anything less. There’s a line of trees that follow the sidewalk, rising tall above her, and she imagines what they’ll look like when winter isn’t clinging to their lifeless branches anymore - bushy and full, casting delightful shadows that will make walking a dog something enjoyable and less of a chore. She imagines their green will match the grass, once the snow melts and it peeks through, welcoming the spring to the great white north.

She’s stalling.

Clarke shoves her hands deeper into the pockets of her fleece leather jacket that doesn’t do much to fight off the cold, ignoring the fact that, if she wants someone to come to the door, she has to _knock_.

If she’s being honest with herself, she’s scared of knocking, of learning what’s really waiting for her on the other side of this door, of shattering the fantasies she created in her mind for the last six years.

Because Clarke remembers how she left Lexa.

For the upteempth time since she closed the door on what could have been the beginning of a love story they’d tell to their grandchildren, Clarke replays those last few hours she had had with Lexa. She remembers the careful touches and worried glances, the softness that surrounded them and that she made sure to break, the way she ended up breaking Lexa as well.

Fuck, she was such a _bitch_.

It has been an uphill battle for Clarke to understand why she acted the way she did and to accept what she can’t change, to stop beating herself over the head and wondering what she could have done differently. Clarke did what she did because she was trying to protect herself, plain and simple - if she did it in the most selfish and cruel way she knew how to, well, that’s something she will have to seek forgiveness for.

And for her to find that forgiveness, she has to knock on the goddamn door first.

But the lump in her throat grows bigger and bigger with each breath she takes as she psychs herself up to take her hand from her pocket, curl her fingers into a fist, rattle her knuckles against the door, try not to vomit as she waits for someone to come answer it. She only gets as far as sinking her nails deeper into her palm.

She owes it to herself to knock and wait and pray Lexa will let her get the words out before all hell breaks loose, before she kicks and screams and punches Clarke like she’s pretty sure Lexa wants to - if she were Lexa, by God, she’d want her head on a stick.

If Clarke said she has even a clue of how Lexa will react to her standing in her porch six years after leaving, she would be lying. She might get the angry mess she half expects, she might not even get a look of recognition, but she owes it to herself to try, to at least _try_ to make things right again. For her own sake, if nothing else - again, her selfish side comes to life, ignoring what harm she might do.

For the last six years, Clarke has woken up every day knowing she had a battle to fight -  against herself, against who she thought she was doomed to be, against the person who looked at her from the mirror with bloodshot eyes and cracked lips. And she fought, every single day, without rest. She got up, no matter how badly she wanted to stay in bed and throw a pity party in between the sheets, and she worked on herself. She worked on herself too hard and for too long to not even _try_.

Clarke remembers the first few days, remembers the tears that she weren’t allowed to shed, remembers the bottomless pool of emptiness and regret that threatened to swallow her whole if she weren’t careful.

If she closes her eyes and focuses on the blackness she’s still trying to wash away from her heart, Clarke can almost pinpoint the moment it got too hard - missing Lexa, trying to get on with her life without her, pretending she could keep working the same job and everything would be fine. She can nearly taste the wine that became too bitter for her to swallow when a hand that wasn’t Lexa’s touched her thigh, can almost feel the bile rising to her throat when lips that weren’t Lexa’s pressed against her neck, can hazily remember the cold sweat clinging to every inch of her body when she woke up next to someone that wasn’t Lexa.

Willingly or not, Lexa was the one that rolled a snowball down a snow-covered hillside. And every day, something new clung to Clarke, something that made her feel that much heavier, feel like she was stuck in a vicious cycle she couldn’t break free from, feel like she had to make the world stop so she could get the fuck off.

With the distant feeling of her touches and vague memory of her words, Lexa was the one who prodded her to change more than she thought she ever could and Clarke just needs her to know that.

Gritting her teeth so hard she’s half afraid of grinding them to dust, Clarke raises her fist and knocks on the door - three quick knocks, just loud enough for her not to blame herself when no one comes to answer it.

But sure enough, someone does.

Even through the curtains covering the oversized windows, Clarke makes out lights coming to life, hears paper shuffling and something else from the other side of the door. It takes all she’s got not to sprint back down the driveway and throw up behind her car.

She stands her ground with shaky legs and clammy palms, a fist closing around her throat, around her heart, because she had six years to prepare for this moment but it wasn’t enough. She has ran all possible scenarios in her head, has a plan to deal with most of them, but still, it isn’t enough.

Shoving her hands back in her pockets and shifting her weight from one foot to another, Clarke wonders if it’s possible to have the whole damn zoo in her stomach instead of just butterflies. She can swear there’s a whole bloat of hippopotami running wild in her core, trumping every control she might have over her emotions. Before she can shake herself off and get a grip, the door swings open.

The door swings open and there is Lexa.

All air leaves her lungs at once. When Clarke breathes in again, when black stars peppers in her vision and she forces herself to suck oxygen in again, it feels like a breath of fresh air after being underwater for far too long.

Lexa looks _painfully_ good. Somehow, Clarke hadn’t taken this into account, hadn’t anticipated how she would react to Lexa answering the door in sweatpants and a grey shirt that seems to date back to her college days, ready to turn in for the day. Clarke had rehearsed over and over again, prepared for every conversation she could think of, but she doesn’t have a plan to deal with _seeing_ Lexa.

It disarms Clarke, how much Lexa has changed and how she looks exactly the same.

She looks older, a few laughter lines here and there, and she looks wiser. Her hair is shorter, the wild curls would play with when Lexa had just fallen asleep had been tamed down to straighter locks, and she wears glasses now - maybe she did before and Clarke simply hadn’t stuck around to learn that, but it surprises her nonetheless.

Still, the way Lexa looks at her from behind those tortoise shell glasses, the way she works her jaw to one side and then the other before clenching to hard enough for Clarke to see the muscles working under her skin- that’s the same.

Clarke doesn’t find her voice in time. Instead, she watches dumbfoundedly as Lexa crosses her arms tight over her chest, purses her lips together, tilts her chin up - her walls are holding sturdy in place and Clarke has next to nothing that will help her knock them down.

“Why are you here?” Lexa says in a stone cold voice that doesn’t give away anything she might be feeling. There was a time when Clarke might had been able to see something in her eyes, but the light around them is too dim for her to make anything out, the years that stretch between them making it harder.

Clarke blinks. Out of all the things she imagined Lexa telling her, those words were never the first ones. Clarke thinks back to getting Raven to convince Anya to see her, to talk to her, to _listen_ to her for just five seconds. It took weeks for Anya to agree to it, and she had demanded Clarke came over to the firm at a time she knew Lexa wouldn’t be in. For the first half hour, Clarke couldn’t get a word out and simply sat there, listening to Anya call her every name on the book, threaten to get her impaled more than once, curse like a drunk sailor without making much sense as to why. But at the end, after a few more threats and name calling, Anya did tell her where Lexa lives.

She keeps it simple, because that’s not what’s important right now. “Anya gave me your address.”

Lexa clenches her jaw, which is enough for Clarke to know Anya will be getting more than her fair share of yelling afterwards. For the first time since she ran into Raven all those months ago, Clarke wonders how far she is from being considered a stalker, how much it’ll take for Lexa to close the door on her face and get a restraining order.

Taking a step closer as if to keep a clear barrier between Clarke and the inside of her home, Lexa narrows her eyes. “I meant, what do you want _here_. At my doorstep. In the middle of the night.”

It’s a little past nine now, hardly the middle of the night, but Clarke can only assume time works differently in the suburbs. She swallows thickly as she thinks about the small piece of paper where Anya had scribbled her address while giving Clarke a dirty look, tucked in the back pocket of her jeans. She had been holding on to it for the last six hours, her heart nearly jumping from her chest every time she looked at it, without finding the nerve to pay Lexa a visit. Even now, she’s nearly bolting and pretending this never happened.

Her voice is a small thing when she finally gets it out, the fist around her throat squeezing tighter, “I want to talk to you.”

“We have nothing to say to each other,” Lexa says without any hesitation, her voice so cold it sends chills down Clarke’s spine, and reaches out for the handle, motioning to shut the door closed.

Before she thinks through what she’s doing, Clarke steps forward, just enough that she can press her palm on the door to keep it open, “We _do_.” Something tells Clarke that if she lets that door close, she won’t ever get a chance to talk to Lexa again. She certainly won’t have the guts to pull a stunt like this again. “At least, I do. Lexa-”

“I don’t care about what you have to say to me,” Lexa sighs, the emphasis she gives to each word making it clear that she means every one of them. Her fingers curl around the handle a bit tighter, and Clarke is ready to admit defeat - she can’t really force Lexa to listen to her, not when she won’t ever hear her. “I don’t want to hear any of it. I don’t-”

“Mommy?”

Lexa turns immediately towards the soft voice that drifts towards then, a gesture that looks so ingrained in her that is little more than a reflex now, muscle memory that kicks in when she hears that word.

It takes Clarke a moment longer to follow Lexa’s eyes and find a little boy stumbling down the stairs towards the foyer. His soft brown hair sticks out in every direction, messy from however long he was in bed, and he rubs his eyes with his hands curled into fists, trying to wipe away his sleep along with his tears that stain his cheeks.

Clarke can’t tell if it’s his timbre or the way he calls for Lexa that surprises her the most - maybe the fact that there is a little boy in that house altogether.

He pads towards them, his steps muffled by his footed pajamas against the carpet, and drops his weight against Lexa’s legs, pressing his face on her thigh, wiping the newer tears on her sweatpants. “Mommy, I had a nightmare,” he hiccups against her knee and Clarke can’t help but smile.

It’s a sweet sight, to see a boy seeking comfort from all bad things in his mother’s arms.

Lexa hoists him up by his armpits and he wraps his legs around her waist, his arms around her neck, burying his face on the crook of her neck. For a moment, all Clarke sees is the little spaceships and galaxies on his pajamas as he swings his legs with Lexa’s gentle rocking, her hand rubbing up and down his back, trying to soothe him. For a moment, Clarke can swear she sees an entirely different Lexa comes alive before her eyes, one who talks in hushed tones and has all the warmth one might need.

Clarke is so distracted with the utter softness in their embrace that she almost misses Lexa turning to her. “I’ll tuck him back in. You can wait here,” her voice is about as hard as she can manages with a sleepy toddler wrapped around her and Clarke nods, takes a step inside, half wants to ask where exactly she should wait, but Lexa’s attention is back to the little boy, “Do you want to talk about your dream?”

He shakes his head and peeks from his hiding spot, watching Clarke. His dark green eyes are a carbon copy of Lexa’s. “Who’s that?”

“She’s… a friend,” Clarke can almost _hear_ how much it pains Lexa to use that word to describe her, but she guesses it’s easier to tell a small child that the stranger standing in their front porch is a friend than to explain everything.

Lexa adjusts her grip around him, jostling him up as she makes her way towards the stairs, and he just rubs at his eyes, trying to get rid of the sting his tears left him with, still looking at Clarke. “She has pink hair.”

It makes Clarke smile. He says it without any judgement, simply stating a fact, but Clarke still reaches up to her hair. It’s a lot shorter than it was when she met Lexa, and she dyed the tips pink the day before she moved to Toronto - it certainly helped her to be well liked by her students.

“Yes, she does.”

The little boy perks up, so suddenly Lexa almost loses balance, and looks at her with raises eyebrows and a pout that seems like could be his go-to move when he wants something. All memories of his bad dreams seem to have left him when he tilts his head to the side, “Can I make my hair pink too?”

“We’ll see about that in the morning, okay?” Lexa indulges him, rubbing his back until he lies back down on her shoulder, “What book do you want to read?”

“The one with the ducks,” he says through a yawn, his voice getting muffled in Lexa’s shirt or by sleepiness, Clarke can’t be sure. They take a right towards the hallway on the upper floor where Clarke assumes the bedrooms are and she follows them with her eyes until she loses sight of them.

So.

Lexa has a child.

Even if they had been together little more than a week, they packed a good year of relationship talk within that time. Even if they didn’t get to go to museums or do grocery shopping together, they went through all the stages a relationship could.

And even back then, Clarke knew Lexa was meant to be a mom. The way Lexa played with her friend’s daughter, the way she talked about kids, the way she daydreamed about their own - Clarke feels her heart squeeze painfully at the memory of how Lexa talked about _their_ babies, at how this is just a dream now - it all showed how right it feels for her to become a mom.

And seeing it now, in the few stolen moments she got, Clarke can tell Lexa was born to have a son, to hold his tiny body in her arms and shower it with all the love she has in her heart.

Clarke lets herself in, closing the door behind her and leaning against it for a moment. She sighs, the air coming out of her in a big, tired puff. Her eyes fall closed and Clarke wonders, not for the first time, if it was right of her to come here demanding to be heard when she hurt Lexa so much, to come here at all.

If she thinks about it too hard, she’ll bolt through the door and regret it all her life, so instead, she takes her surroundings in.

It’s a big house, with an open floor plan that lets Clarke see the living room and the kitchen from the foyer, tastefully decorated all in white, soft brown and cool colors. But as much as it feels like something only a professional could come up with, it doesn’t feel like a house, it feels like a _home_. It feels lived in.

Crossing the small distance between the front door and the living room, Clarke takes in the mudroom to the side, smiles at their shoes resting side by side, their coats hanging from alternating hooks. There’s a moss green backpack lying against the pillows in the little bench and it’s tiny enough that Clarke doesn’t have to wonder whose it is - is the little boy in kindergarten yet? She’s never been the best guesser when it came to knowing young children’s age.

She ventures further into the house, her hands safely shoved in the pockets of her jacket - Clarke doesn’t want it to look like she’s prying, even if that’s exactly what she’s doing. There are toys scattered around the living room, a chalkboard propped up against an easel and oversized chalks lying on the floor, a wooden tool kit organized neatly and tucked beside the couch, a bunch of building blocks resting on the coffee table, a creation abandoned halfway through. Clarke imagines the little boy building a big castle and having to postpone finishing it because it was bedtime already, wonders if Lexa is the kind of mom that has a strict bedtime schedule. She probably is. Clarke will probably never know it for sure.

A book is lying facedown on the couch. Lexa could have been reading when Clarke knocked on the door, enjoying a few moments of solitude before going to bed, and she put the book like that to mark the page. Clarke has half a mind to go see what book it is, but something else catches her eye.

Pictures.

Dozens of them, hanging on the walls,

Hanging on the wall behind the couch, sitting on frames on the shelves near the TV, peppering the wall near the stairs, even a few attached to threads that hang from a rustic branch near the little breakfast nook.

Clarke spares a look towards the stairs and shuffles carefully towards the couch when she finds it empty. There’s a part of her that tells her she should go back to the foyer and wait there, that tells her that it won’t do her any favors if Lexa finds her snooping around. But her curiosity wins out by a long shot and she takes in the pictures neatly organized on the walls, in light wooden frames, showcasing an entire lifetime.

There are pictures of days spent among nature, either at gardens that could be mistaken by forests or parks that both mother and son clearly enjoy a lot, and birthday parties - Clarke learns that the boy is four years old, his last party was Lego themed and he built a fire truck he was very proud of - and visits to places he’d never been before, worth snapping a shot of his wide eyes and bright smile.

It’s an array of little moments that show him from birth until now.

Lexa looks stupidly happy with a newborn in her arms, wrapped in a thick woolen blanket that almost doesn’t show the baby’s face, although the dark circles under her eyes tell just how tiring being a new mom can be. There’s a big panel with monthly pictures, from one to twelve drawn in chalk beside a baby wearing outfits that match the theme of the month - there’s nothing cuter than a baby wearing a Canada onesie for July.

Clarke looks at all the pictures - the little boy at a flower shop, picking out sunflowers that are almost taller than he is; at a diner, shoving too many fries in his mouth at once, and Lexa wrapping an arm around his shoulders, laughing at her son; in front of his classroom, with a backpack and a toothy smile; at the beach, with little shorts and a big hat casting a shadow all over his body; up on Anya’s lap, with a flower crown falling to his eyes.

Someone clears their throat and Clarke nearly jumps out of her skin.

She turns, her heart pounding painfully, her soul still half hanging off her body with how startled she got, and she finds Lexa standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Hi. I- I didn’t- I wasn’t,” the words get jumbled in her tongue, and she breathes in deeply to gather her bearings. “I wasn’t snooping- I mean, maybe a little but- hi.” Clarke smiles at a dead serious Lexa, who simply folds her hands behind her. Clarke glances back at the frames she were looking at just a moment ago before turning to Lexa again, “Is he your son?”

“Yes,” Lexa answers dryly. Between the little boy covering every wall in sight and him literally calling her ‘ _mommy_ ’, Clarke knows it was a dumb question, a way to squeeze in a few more moments with her before being kicked out. By the glare Lexa gives her, she knows it too.

Clarke nods, takes her hands out of her jacket pockets, shoves them into the back pockets of her jeans. Her entire body aches to touch Lexa. “What’s his name?” She tries to brush it off like a casual question, as if they’re just two buddies catching up, as if her intentions are as innocent as her voice makes it sound, as if she isn’t trying to find out more about what she had missed.

But of course she fails.

Of course Lexa sees right through her.

Lexa works her jaw and Clarke can’t tell if she’s fighting back tears or trying to keep herself from throttling Clarke. If that makes warm lead pool in Clarke’s stomach, she makes sure to store that information for later, for when she can overthink it to her heart’s content. Clarke rakes her nails against the inside of her pockets as she waits for Lexa to say something, _anything_ , and watches as she closes her eyes. Lexa keeps them closed for a long moment - long enough for Clarke’s stomach to fill with acid, threatening to corrode her insides, washing away the warm lead and replacing it with something akin to dread.

It feels a lot like beating her head against a wall and she knows should give up. She should take the goddamn hint - more like the spelled out words, from how obvious it is that she isn’t welcome in here - and fucking leave.

When Lexa opens her eyes, they are cold and she doesn’t answer her question. Instead, she walks towards the middle of the room with careful steps. Even if she’s barefoot on a fluffy carpet, surrounded by children’s toys, Lexa looks like a queen about to demand to have Clarke’s head delivered to her on a platter.

Lexa tilts her head slightly and it sends a shiver down Clarke’s spine, “What do you _want_ , Clarke?”

“I want to talk to you.”

She _does_. For the last few months, she’s been daydreaming about everything she would tell Lexa, from the nights she spent drawing her face from memory, trying to capture an essence she was scared to forget, to the thrill she felt when she got in the plane that would take her to her new home. She wants to show Lexa every painting she’s done since they parted, wants to apologize.

Clarke really wants to talk to Lexa and she doesn’t understand why those words taste like lies.

Lexa rolls her eyes and, as discreet as it was, it stings. Clarke can’t even remember if she expected a warm welcome or something else, but _this_ wasn’t it. Lexa tilts her chin up, “I told you, I have nothing to say”

“Then just-“ Clarke hears the desperation in her voice as she takes a step closer, holds her breath, reaches out to touch Lexa’s arm. But she stops just short of touching her, snapping her hand back when Lexa lowers her glare to it, daring her to come any closer. Clarke bites her lip and balls her hand into a fist, keeping it firmly to her side. She misses the intimacy they had, the freedom to touch each other that Clarke made sure to ruin. “Let _me_ talk. If you give me two minutes of your time, I promise I'll get out of your hair.”

“Two minutes.”

Clarke takes what she can get.

Swallowing past the knot in her throat, Clarke wills her voice not to shake - because she knows it’ll shake, it’ll break, it’ll crumble, any resemblance of poise will go away the moment the opens her mouth. “I know I’m six years late for this but I’m-” Clarke has half a mind to tip Lexa’s chin up, to force her to meet her eyes, but she does so on her own accord. Her green eyes, once so warm and inviting, are hard and cold, narrowing with suspicion. “I’m sorry. I never meant to leave things between us like that. I never meant to hurt you like that,” her voice cracks at the edges but she breathes through it. Lexa hardly looks in the mood to deal with her crying, barely seems like she’s putting up with this conversation at all. But Clarke pushes through. “I got scared when it became real. And I ran, because it was easier than stay.”

“We were in a business transaction that got to an end. There’s nothing more to it.” Lexa says with a steady voice and calm breathing, a far cry from how Clarke feels. It’s clearly something Lexa believes in. She did have _years_ to convince herself of a reality that hurt less and Clarke can’t blame her for that.

But that doesn’t mean she’ll accept it willingly.

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Clarke feels a fire simmering within her and she wants to yell, wants to make Lexa remember what they had and how far from a ‘ _business transaction_ ’ it all felt.

“You didn’t seem to think so.” Lexa takes a step closer, her voice cutting, “And would you keep your voice down? My son is asleep next door.”

It takes Clarke aback.

Lexa has a son.

Clarke thinks about the little boy, about his peach pink cheeks wet with tears, about how he cuddled up to his mom like no one else in the universe would do when it came to scaring his bad dreams away. She thinks about the pictures she saw and all the moments they represent, thinks about the countless little moments that passed them by without being captured in a picture - the little boy falling asleep in her arms, the first time he called him ‘ _mommy_ ’, breakfast in bed and staying in their pajamas all day in the cozy fall weather.

Lexa is a mom and Clarke has no place in her life anymore.

It doesn’t take a genius to do the math, it’s not a big leap to assume Lexa has a wife. Even if the only people in those pictures were Anya and Eudoxia, having a child probably means Lexa has someone to raise him with, someone she loves and made plans to built a family together that are turning reality now.

She sucks her bottom lip in between her teeth and bites on it, takes a step back, putting a distance between them that she doesn’t want to. But she can barely keep her hands to herself with Lexa a room away, she needs that distance if she’s not going to fuck everything up once again. Even if the sandalwood scent Clarke has started to associate with Lexa pulls at the strings in her stomach, makes her want to step closer and drown herself in Lexa- she knows to keep her distance.

Because what Clarke wants is to show Lexa who she helped her become - nothing more.

Because, after all, she didn’t move all the way to Toronto to hunt Lexa down and pester her until they got back together. It wasn’t even one of the reasons why she decided to move at all.

If she believed in fate, in destiny, in all that crap, Clarke would say the goddamn stars had aligned and paved a path for her to come here.

After finishing her studies and starting to work full time with children that were either too passionate about art or slept all through her classes, Clarke had decided to move to California to somewhere sunny where the art she had worked on every night and every early morning would be appreciated. She had looked into apartments to rent and talked to a handful of gallery owners about showcasing her pieces there - but everything fell through as soon as she thought about it.

Then Toronto happened. And everything worked. She found an apartment she loved, she found a school with an amazing art program, she found a gallery she couldn’t believe was hers now.

She found Lexa again.

Lexa had been tucked away in the back of her mind for most of these years, a memory she visited in snowy nights when she ordered pizza, a memory she refused to let herself dwell on - well, that’s a lie Clarke has told herself so many times she almost started to believe it.

Because she thought about Lexa every night when she picked up her brush and stared at a blank canvas, too bright and clean among the half finished pieces in her apartment. It was Lexa’s voice she heard as she breathed in and dove right into a new painting, making a mess before she found out what it was meant to be.

It felt right, to look for Lexa.

Even if she can almost feel those sharp eyes cutting through her skin.

“I know you felt something. You told me you-” the words tumble out of her lips and Clarke barely stops herself before she says something she isn’t allowed to anymore. She wants to remind Lexa of that night in her brother’s couch, when Clarke shed all her defenses and let Lexa in, when Lexa did the same. She wants to make Lexa look at her and remember. “Lexa, it wasn’t a lie.”

“I thought I had romantic feelings for you, a long time ago, yes. But, well.” Lexa shrugs “It was nothing but misguided need paired with professional sex.”

It feels like a punch.

Clarke can almost feel a closed fist hitting her right where her breastbone ends, knocking the air out of her lungs and making her retch at the same time.

And the worst part is that Clarke knows she deserves it, knows she’d deserve it if Lexa had actually punched her. But it doesn’t make it _feel_ any less unfair. “Is that all I was? Professional sex?”

Clarke half hopes Lexa will say something when she tips her chin up and swallows thickly. Because the tears pooling in those green eyes tell Clarke that she had been more than that, more than just someone to warm her bed in the coldest days of the year. It might have starts like that, like a play they both had very well defined parts to play, but it turned into something else.

Into something more.

But Lexa turns away from her and towards the door, “Your two minutes are up.”

Clarke follows her, because she can’t force Lexa to want her in her home. Even when she has so much more to say, so much more to explain and share and show Lexa - she didn’t come here to have two minutes with Lexa, she can’t put six entire years in two minutes.

“Come to my gallery. Before it opens. Tomorrow.” She spills out, the words coming out in a jumbled mess, running over each other in their hurry to be heard. She needs Lexa to listen to her. “I want you to see my paintings before everyone else. I can’t- I can’t open it without showing them to you first.”

Lexa swings the front door open, holding it like that for Clarke to her the hell out of there - the message is crystal clear. “Why is that important?”

“It is, Lexa.” And it’s something she can’t put into words, how much she needs Lexa there. Each painting tells a story, a part of the story Clarke wants so desperately to tell her. She thought she’d have more time to convince Lexa to go, now she just stops a step short of begging, her voice a lot more urgent than she had meant it to be, a lot more choked. “Believe me, it is.”

Clarke crosses the threshold and holds her breath against the cold air that hits her, makes her hair stand, leaves her craving for Lexa’s warmth. But Lexa looks at her and Clarke wonders if that warmth had all been a figment of her imagination. “I have a son who I barely see during the week. I won't leave him with his nanny on a Saturday.”

“Bring him along,” Clarke prompts, thinks about saying something about how he’d like to see paintings three times his size, all splashes of colorful paintings and memories Clarke has of his mom. But she bites her tongue. She doesn’t have the right to look forward to spending some time with a little piece of Lexa, she doesn’t have any right at all. “I’d love to get to know him.”

“I don't want him near you,” Lexa scoffs and closes the door until it’s almost shut. If it looks like a shield, protecting Lexa from her, Clarke doesn’t mention it. “He gets attached easily, I’d hate for him to get his heart broken so early.“

“I- I won’t talk to him then. I just need you to come. Please, Lex”

 _Lex_. It tastes sweet in her tongue and the nickname flows from her for the first time in over half a decade, but it feels right. It feels like she’s been saying it all along, murmuring it against warm skin in sleepy mornings and shouting it over her shoulder when her arms are full of flowers she can’t choose from. It feels like her heart could burst with how much it swells, with how warm it feels.

But Lexa looks like she’s been slapped. “Do not call me that. Now please, _leave_.”

Fair enough.

Clarke doesn’t have the right to use a nickname that sounds much more intimate than they’ve been in years. Still, she nods, pushes on. “I'll be at the gallery all day. Here's the address.” She searches her pockets for a card - she got them done a few weeks ago and hasn’t handed out any yet, Lexa will have the first one. Clarke can’t quite pinpoint when she became such a sap.

She holds it between two fingers and stretches it out for Lexa to take it. Lexa simply stares at it for a moment, her lips turning down with something Clarke wants to call disgust. But then she finally snatches it and Clarke lets herself breathe again.

“Good bye, Clarke,” Lexa shuts the door on her face, but her tone is more than enough to let Clarke know it’s all a pipe dream, to hope Lexa will show up.

Still, she hopes.

Clarke stares at the door for a full minute after Lexa closed it on her face, willing her legs to move, her lungs to work, her heart to tone it down a bit. A tiny part of her hopes that, if she stays there just a moment more, Lexa will open the door again, invite her in, let her talk.

When that doesn’t happen, Clarke drives home.

She kicks her shoes off at the door and throws her jacket towards the general direction of her bed, welcoming the warmth from her apartment that seems to hug her. She reheats the Chinese leftovers from last night and eats from the take out box, curled on her couch with the TV working as both mild entertainment and the only light source.

Most days, Clarke would consider this a pretty damn good night. Most days, she would fall asleep with a half finished sketch dropped over her chest, maybe grab a book and make her way to the bed before falling asleep with _that_ dropped over her chest. If the semester was nearing an end, she’d be grading sketchbooks from a never ending pile on her kitchen table. Some days, she might even pick up a brush and watch the sunrise from the window that took up most of her wall.

She should get a cat.

If she had a cat, she could wave a little string for it to chase until it got tired and curled up beside her. If she had a cat, maybe she wouldn’t overthink everything so much.

But she doesn’t have a cat and her mind might just kill her with all the _what if_ s it’s coming up with.

Clarke tosses the empty box in the trash and showers - the water is hot enough that it tingles the skin of her back, but it feels more cleansing than a lukewarm shower could ever dream of accomplishing. Her pajamas feel stiff against her skin and she grabs her sketchbook, settles back on the couch, changes the TV to a bad horror movie from the 80s, lets her pencil slide across a clean page.

It’s been six years since she walked out on Lexa, knowing she had broken her heart, knowing she would cry and mull over the words she had said, words that were too hard, words she didn’t have the right to say, words Lexa didn’t deserve to hear.

Clarke remembers the snow crunching under her feet as she ran from the hotel, remembers the cab drive filled with sobs the driver didn’t comment on, remembers the emptiness threatening to swallow her whole if she let it.

She remembers how her apartment felt tainted - with her selfishness, with the blood she drew, with her betrayal. Because she had brought Lexa there. She had opened up and let her in, had showed her more of her than anyone else knew, had made love among art and realized nothing compared to the feeling of Lexa’s skin against hers. She had touched heaven and let it slip between her fingers.

It was something within her that made her climb out the limbo she had fallen into and start taking charge of her life, Clarke knows that. She’s giving herself credit where credit is due, but she can’t help think that day - that day six years ago when she broke Lexa’s heart and hers as well - gave her the push she needed.

Because it made her realize she wasn’t any closer to becoming an artist than she was when she told her mom she wanted to change majors.

Somewhere between the expensive gifts and the trips overseas, Clarke had stopped chasing her dream. Somewhere between hating herself and loving the luxurious lifestyle, being an escort had stopped being the means to an end and started being her actual job, something she liked and was good at, something that was more than a plan B. Somewhere between all that, putting the time and effort she knew she needed to become an artist fell to the background of her mind.

Those moments she had with Lexa had been a wake up call. Because she wanted to have just _that_ \- she wanted someone she could share her life with, the good and the bad, someone who would make her want to become better at her craft, someone who would be proud of every milestone she reached. In those few moments, Lexa had seen her art, from the silly squid with sunglasses to the portraits she put so much time in, and loved it, and made _her_ love it.

In those moments, she loved Lexa and knew what it was like to be loved in return.

And that’s what she wanted to find a way to put into words.

If Lexa would ever listen to her.

Clarke wants to tell Lexa about applying to graduate school after putting together a portfolio that she worked on between clients, that took way too long to get done. She wants to tell her about the butterflies in her stomach when she walked into a studio for the first time in so many years. She wants to tell her about the nights she spent awake, pouring over textbooks she had forgotten how to deal with, and about the first time she walked into a classroom as a teacher, how nerve wracking and incredible it was.

She wants to tell Lexa _everything_ , but she had already moved on far beyond Clarke could even dream to catch up.

It’s been six entire years and Clarke had never expected Lexa to wait for her, had never had the right to even hope for that. But something inside of her coils tightly when she thinks that she might never be able to make Lexa understand how much she changed her life, willingly or not, knowingly or not.

But it’s all up to Lexa now. All Clarke can do is hope she shows up tomorrow.

Clarke blinks at the credits rolling up on her TV and looks at her sketchbook, sees the familiar jawline, sharp enough to cut through glass, and the piercing eyes that shine through her building lines - it’s Lexa. She’s drawn that same face so often over the years that it’s hardly surprising Lexa is the one her subconscious decides to draw when she’s paying more attention to the bad horror movie and her own ghosts than to the sketch she’s working on.

She closes the sketchbook and drags herself to bed.

If she tosses and turns until the soft golden light that sunrise brings fills her entire apartment, no one needs to know.

Clarke waits almost patiently until the clock says seven - she can get up at seven in the morning, it’s not _pathetic_ to get up at seven in the morning. Only then, she gets up. She gets up, washes her face and tries not to think whether Lexa is considering the pros and cons about visiting her gallery that very moment.

She goes through her Saturday like it’s any other. She grabs some dark roast coffee from the little shop down the street from her and sits near the window, drinks it while watching people walking by, walking in and out of the shop, sketches some of them, makes up life stories for others. She grabs a second coffee, in a to go cup this time, and goes back to her apartment, sits on her desk, opens up her planner - she’s a _physical planner with a working color code and more stickers than she knows what to do with_ kind of girl now when she wouldn’t be caught dead with one six years ago. Her heart aches.

Her entire Saturday is blocked out, a mossy green background with “ _gallery opening_ ” written in white with flowers doodled all around it, and that sight makes her smile. She worked hard for that and it’s all paying off now.

But she opens on the new week and grabs the folder with the syllabus for each grade, forces herself to focus on lesson planning instead of letting her mind wander to a little boy swinging his legs as he has breakfast with his mommy, happy beyond words that he gets to spend the day with her.

It’s nearly noon when she piles everything neatly and sets it aside, stretches her arms well up above her head and smiles when her entire back cracks. It’s the little things. It has taken her years to learn how to enjoy the tiny things - a sunny winter day, chocolate, a cozy scarf, sharing a smile with a stranger, a good joke, sunsets over the hill.

Clarke grabs her things - her sketchbook, her watercolors palette, something to eat on the go - and makes her way to her gallery. She needs to take a last look at it, make sure everything is how it’s supposed to be before it opens. She needs to ground herself, to touch every piece, to know it’s real, it’s happening. She needs to be there if Lexa shows up.

It’s a little thing, the gallery where she’s having her exhibit. It sits snuggly in between a designer shop and a gourmet bakery, its glass walls letting the midday sun shine onto the paintings Clarke took hours, days, months to get done.

It’s a little thing, but for the next two months, it’s _hers_.

As she walks among the pieces - from the left to the right, going towards the back and past the middle panel, then down the hallway to the second room, like she meant it to be, like she organized the whole story - Clarke feels her heart hammering, slow and steady, against her ribcage.

It’s not really the first time she shows her art. She’s done collaborations with other artists back in New York, put up a piece or two in small galleries where she didn’t even go to, where she had to share her narrative with several other artists. But this is _hers_ , this is just hers, and she wants to make sure everything is ready.

Clarke refuses to accept the reason her heart is pounding almost painfully is the not knowing if Lexa will show up or not.

She forces herself to believe it’s because of the opening and nothing else.

This gallery is something she has dreamed about for half of her life, something she fought tooth and nail to accomplish, something that has her blood and sweat all over. She runs her eyes across a wall, displaying five paintings nearly as tall as she is, and thinks to painting more than one of them with tears in her eyes - tears of sadness, of exhaustion, of overwhelming doubt. She remembers squeezing half an hour painting sessions into her days, remembers losing sleep to paint and waking up with a jolt after falling asleep on her stool and nearly tumbling to the floor, remembers feeling like a whole different person as these pieces came to life.

She’s invested too much time and money and life into this gallery for her to care about anything else.

But she still looks at her watch every five minutes.

For hours, Clarke sits cross legged on the floor, her sketchbook half forgotten on her lap. Every now and then, she turns to it, scribbles something down and looks up to stare outside for a while, willing Lexa to show up.

Years ago, Clarke started carrying a small sketchbook wherever she went so she could draw something in the little pockets of free time she found in her day. At first, it had been a way to get something, _anything_ done towards her goal. By now, it had become a crutch - she same way someone plays games on their phone to avoid social awkwardness or being alone with their thoughts.

And she fills entire pages with animals and people - if they almost always resemble Lexa, she simply stores that information for later - and different versions of the view she has, splashing watercolors here and there, working a different marker each time her thoughts become too loud.

When three in the afternoon comes, Clarke lets out a shaky breath.

Her entire brain yells at her to give up, to go home and get some damn sleep before coming back only a few hours from now to officially open her first exhibit, the first one that could be a step up to greater things.

But her heart whispers, ‘ _wait just a little while longer_.’

Clarke gets up and stretches, fighting a yawn - between not sleeping at all and sitting on the floor for half the afternoon, she’s _exhausted_. She’s about to go once again to the bakery next door and shout an order for her fifth cup of coffee from the door so she wouldn’t miss if someone walked into her gallery when the door opens. And then she’s rooted in place.

Her heart hops senselessly in her chest, ‘ _I knew it, I knew it, I knew it_.’

Lexa looks breathtaking and once again, Clarke isn’t fucking ready for that sight. Between her high waisted jeans with her blouse tucked into them and the braid falling over her shoulder, Clarke feels her mouth going dry. It’s a practical outfit when you have a four year old to care after, but Lexa makes it look sinfully good.

It takes her a yelp from said four year old for Clarke to snap herself out of it. She forces herself to swallow past the cotton in her tongue and watches Lexa waking in, opening the door a bit wider for her son to hop cheerfully inside, hand on her.

He takes everything in, with wide eyes and his mouth agape. Most pieces in the gallery are at least almost twice his size and all the bright colors from the first pictures must be one hell of a sight for a young child. He stumbles forward without paying attention to where he’s going and Clarke bites her lips to keep herself from smiling at how damn cute he is - his mom wouldn’t like that.

Lexa half scans the gallery and Clarke can’t tell if she’s taking in the paintings or looking for her. Instead of guessing, Clarke wipes her hand on her jeans - she’s ruined her fair share of good pants by cleaning paint stained palms on them but it’s still a reflex, still something she does whenever someone new sees her work - and makes her way towards them.

“You came.” The words come tumbling down from her in lieu of a proper hello, relief flooding her and showing all across her face. Clarke can only hope her smile doesn’t border _creepy_ with how wide it is - because Lexa _came_.

Her smile gets tapered down when Lexa clenches her jaw and tugs at her son’s to keep him from wandering away. “I almost didn’t,” her voice is cold and cutting but Clarke doesn’t let it discourage her. The important thing is that she did come.

The little boy turns his attention back to Clarke once his mom doesn’t let him wriggle his hand free from her grasp and sizes her up, his eyes lingering on her pink hair - he really liked that, Clarke muses to herself. He’s blissfully unaware of the tension between the two women and simply rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, tilting his head to the side, “Hi, I’m Aden.”

Clarke looks at his outstretched hand, waiting for her to shake it, and she hesitates. She’s not supposed to talk to him - Lexa made it clear that she did not want that - but this tiny boy has his shoulders back, his chin up and his hand out to her like she’s a colleague he’s finally meeting after months of talking via email.

He’s every bit Lexa’s child.

“Uh-” Clarke hesitates and looks at Lexa, who simply nods for her to go on. Clarke bends down to Aden’s height and clasps her hand around his, shaking it once, “Nice to meet you, Aden. My name is Clarke.”

He giggles as he shakes her hand again, “That’s a boy’s name.”

His toothy grin makes Clarke smile back at him, at his innocence and lack of filter. The world hasn’t gotten to him yet, hasn’t taken the wonder at something as simple as a girl with a boy’s name away from him, and it’s something Clarke hasn’t seen in a long time.

But Lexa tugs at his hand still clasped in hers, glancing at him with knitted brows and a reproaching look, “ _Aden_.”

“But it _is_ ,” Aden shrugs. “There’s a boy in my class with that name,” he reasons and Clarke can’t help her amusement at how much he reminds her of Lexa - he doesn’t back down, he explains his point of view because he knows he’s right.

Lexa sighs. She’s probably well-versed in the way Aden responds to things like that and she simply runs her hand through his thin hair until he looks up at her again, “Some names can work for both girls and boys. But it wasn’t a nice thing to say.”

Her eyebrows shoot up meaningfully and he sighs, mimicking his mom, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It does sound like a boy’s name, doesn’t it?” Clarke says when he looks down apologetic and she tucks her hand away to keep herself from tilting his chin up. There’s a line somewhere near her and she’s pretty sure that would be crossing it. “My mommy was cuckoo to name me that!”

Aden giggles at her cheerful voice and crossed eyes, burying his face on Lexa’s thigh. It was a silly thing to say, something she’s not even sure is appropriate - she hasn’t been near kids that age in a long time, and it might take her a little while to gauge that - but it does get him to smile.

Clarke doesn’t miss the way Lexa smiles fondly at him and wraps her hand around his shoulder, half hugging him back, half pressing him on her thigh. It’s a mother love that can’t be put into words.

There’s a lull in conversation and Clarke realizes she doesn’t know how to navigate this. Because it’s _awkward_ \- to talk to someone she had once felt so close to and now feels a lightyear away, to bring back memories they both tried to bury when there’s a child in between them.  It all feels awkward and Clarke really is relying on a four year old to save her from herself.

But Aden seems bored with them now and pokes his mom to get her attention, “May I go look around?”

“With your eyes, not your hands? This is very important.” Lexa sounds stern, her eyes locked in his, her eyebrows going up to make sure he understands. But it’s the kind of sternness that doesn’t mean much more than a mother wanting her child to be careful.

He shoves his hands in his jacket pockets to prove his point, “Just my eyes.”

“Good. Stay close,” Lexa says with a pat on his shoulder. He takes about three steps away from her before she adds, “And don’t go near the door!”

His shoulders sag a bit but he does take a turn, walking towards a corner that is closer to them and safely away from the door. Clarke watches him go, hands shoved inside the tiny peacoat, curious eyes turning in every direction. Aden stands near a six-foot tall painting, too close for him to get a good look at it, and tilts back to see it all - he bends back so far he almost falls, take a few steps back and moves on to another painting.

“He seems like a good kid,” Clarke offers, her eyes falling to Lexa. She’s half turned away from her, still looking at Aden, a soft, fond smile on her lips.

“He is,” Lexa says and for a moment, Clarke gets to see everything Lexa won’t let her - how much she loves her child, how proud she is of his curiosity, how he’s everything she needs to be happy. And her heart bends painfully when Lexa lets her smile fall when she looks at Clarke, all softness gone, “So?”

Clarke swallows past the lump in her throat and pretends she doesn’t hear the impatience in that single word, doesn’t hear the question at all. Because she’s stalling again, because she doesn’t want to let Lexa go just yet. And as much as Clarke tells herself she doesn’t care, that it’s none of her business and she doesn’t _care_ , she finds herself spilling out the question before she can stop herself, “Is there another mom?”

Lexa clenches her jaw again - she’s done that so often every since Clarke knocked on her door that she’s half afraid Lexa’s teeth will just crumble at some point - and forces herself to look at Clarke, “There is another mom, yes.”

Clarke nods, once. Lexa doesn’t give her much to work with, but her imagination sure runs wild. She pictures Lexa meeting someone at a bookstore or a coffee shop, somewhere love stories usually start in books. And between tentative touches and healing smiles, that someone became a girlfriend, maybe a wife, someone Lexa could see herself sharing a life with. 

Aden looks so much like Lexa, from his green eyes to the way he holds himself, that Clarke imagines doctor appointments and IVF cycles, a belly growing steady and a couple holding hands while buying baby furniture.

Against her better judgement, Clarke prods further, “And she, uh, she didn’t want to come along?”

Pursing her lips and rolling her eyes so far back Clarke wonders if they might actually get stuck like that, Lexa sighs. Clarke crossed the line. “What did you want to show me, Clarke?” Lexa says her name in the same way she did all those years back, with the ‘ _k_ ’ coming from the back of her throat and Clarke fights a shiver.

Even if her voice is flooded with annoyance and exasperation, Clarke still loves how her name sounds in her lips.

“Okay.” Clarke nods and forces herself to focus on everything she wants to show Lexa, forces her heart to quiet down for one goddamn minute. They walk towards the door, to where the gallery flow is supposed to begin, “Okay, here. Go ahead,” her voice is strained and she just gestures for Lexa to go first, to see all the pieces, to take it all in before anyone else has the chance to.

The overall theme is _growth through pain_ , as it says in the framed poster outside the gallery. But Clarke hopes that Lexa, if no one else, sees what it’s really about.

Some paintings are old buildings falling apart and giving way to nature that has come to claim it back, some are fields that seem like paradise at first but slowly give off a decaying vibe, but mostly it’s about a girl.

A girl with bright green eyes that fade to a dulled mossy color as time goes by, as life pulls the rug from under her feet, only to find that shine again later on. A girl with curls that fall over her shoulders and mop her tears, a girl that loses her innocent smile when the world falls apart around her. A girl that becomes a woman through nothing but hardship and pain, that gets stripped from any comfort until she can only find it within herself.

They walk through the organic path Clarke had planned for the gallery and she follows Lexa, letting her lead, stopping a few feet behind her when she pauses to look at a painting a bit longer.

Clarke tries to commit to memory each painting that got Lexa’s attention.

A little girl playing near a river with a red balloon tied to her wrist, her hair flowing with the wind that touches the sunflower field behind her. An older girl either playing or training with a wooden sword, a look of gleeful mischief coloring her face past the beads of sweat. A teenager, her eyelids colored black with paint that drips to her cheeks, kissing a girl with matching warpaint. A ceremony where a red sash is placed over her shoulder, the solemn look in her face a far cry from the grin she had on a few paintings back.

They come to a full stop in front of a painting that Clarke almost didn’t add to the exhibit, because it was too much, because it wasn’t her story to tell - it’s the same teenager, a bit older now, a bit wiser, wrapping her sash around the lifeless body of the girl she kissed, both their tears staining their warpaint, pooling on the floor.

Lexa’s face grows a few shades paler when she reads the words in the little plaque beside the painting, “The Commander on her knees.”

They keep walking, watching as the paintings become moodier, muddier, the colors gone along with the girl’s innocence - she grows harder, tougher, leaving her emotions behind her. Her eyes are cold as she plays with a knife without any fear of getting hurt, sitting on a throne she was born to be on. The sword from her childhood turned from wood to metal and the young woman fights a thousand men at once, blood splattering on her face, on her clothes, on the ground she walks on, but it’s never hers.

Then she falls in love again - her eyes closed as she leans against her lover, their noses touching softly, their hands clasped together, the background filled with colors they had forgotten.

The last painting, sitting in the middle of the second room, shows the woman they’ve watched become the merciless ruler of a nation. Her hand rests on her chest, the tears stain her cheeks, her curls have little white flowers tucked into them - but she’s soft, she’s all soft edges and tear filled eyes, as green as the forest she once fought in.

Clarke doesn’t say anything and neither does Lexa, not for the longest time. When Lexa turns away from the last painting and stares down at her, Clarke feels her blood turn into ice - she doesn’t know what to make of that look, can’t tell what Lexa is thinking, is almost afraid to ask.

Her tone is almost accusing when she finally speaks, her voice cracking at the edges, “What is this?”

Wriggling her hands together, Clarke forces herself to breathe through the panic threatening to take over her - she knows what to say, she’s rehearsed her lines hundreds of times, changed how she wanted to put things at least a dozen times. She ignores the way her heart hammers without any rhythm against her ribcage, ignores the taste of bile rising to the back of her throat, ignores the little black dots floating in her vision. She pushes past it all and finds her voice.

“After… After we split ways, I realized I had completely stopped trying to become an artist, you know? I got too comfortable at my job, because it paid well and I was good at it, and forgot why I took it to begin with. My dream had become a plan B,” her voice is shaky, but Clarke never expected to go through this whole speech with a steady tone so she takes the time to breathe, to keep her tears at bay, “And you- you were the first person to believe I could become who I am now. And you made me believe in myself.”

Clarke remembers the watercolor palette that she still keeps stored safely and still brings out every now and then, even after she’s moved on from cakes to tubes. She thinks about the sketchbook she filled with drawings - of Lexa, of what their lives could have been like -, a few of them completely ruined by the tears she couldn’t hold back.

She isn’t ready to tell Lexa about the pile of sketchbooks as tall as she is, filled with sketches that won’t ever see the light of day, filled with random landscapes and mystical creatures that had nothing to do with Lexa, but still held something of hers - as if Lexa had been in the back of her mind, cheering her on, every step of the way.

“So I started painting at every chance I got, I drew everything I could think of, and somehow, I ended up with you, with pieces of you in everything I did.” Clarke takes a step closer to Lexa and she can’t tell if it’s her nerves or Lexa’s perfume that makes her feel so lightheaded, ”I didn’t churn it all out in one sitting. Or in one week, or in the time it took me to organize this exhibit. I’ve been painting this-” she waves at the room, at the paintings that have months, years between them, but still come together as one story, “-since I, well, since I _left_. The first one I painted is based on that sketch of you sleeping, that I did back in the hotel. It’s in the hallway, I don’t know if you noticed it. And I-”

 _“Jesus_ ,” Lexa whispers in a tone Clarke can almost pinpoint as panic and sighs heavily, like she has added weight on her chest that is keeping her from breathing right. For a moment, Clarke wonders if it’ll do any good to tell Lexa she feels the same, but she keeps her mouth shut instead.

Because Lexa seems about to bolt from the door as it is already. She closes her eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose, hard enough that her nails flash white. Clarke lets her be and doesn’t try to push her to talk - maybe it was too much, maybe she came on too strong and scared Lexa.

It takes Lexa a few minutes to open her eyes and look up again.

That’s when Clarke assumes it’s safe to go on. “When I was going over everything I had ever done to pick a theme for this, I realized I had a story to tell already.” The ‘ _our story_ ’ gets stuck in her throat and she lets it be. There’s only so much she can tell in one afternoon after six years without scaring Lexa away. “I had some gaps to fill, but the bare bones of it were laid out already. And it was all you. You made this come to life. And it was only fair you say it first.”

When Clarke sighs, it feels like the weight she had been carrying all those months had been lifted. It’s out there now, everything that she wanted to say.

“Where-” Lexa begins in a choked voice, but stops before she can get through the sentence. She clears her throat and looks past Clarke, at the paintings behind her - the ones where the Commander sheds down her walls and becomes the soft girl she once were. “How did you come up with all this? The Commander?”

“I’ll tell everyone it’s an original character that represents- something, I haven’t worked out the details yet, and that it’s-” Clarke starts, but realizes that’s not what Lexa wants to know, that’s not what she deserves to hear, “Well, remember the first party we went to? When you yelled at that intern and someone called you that?” Lexa nods, once. “It made me think of you ruling an entire army, charging into battle with a sword and warpaint, not caring if blood got to your armor. It seemed to suit you.”

Clarke doesn’t tell her everything, because this is not the time. Instead, she presses her lips together in a thin line and hopes she’ll get the chance to tell Lexa about the entire backstory she has for the Commander, about how good she is with the ones meant to take her place one day, about how she’s a fair leader, hated by many but loved by even more. She wants to share the drawings with the trial and error attempts at getting the clothes just right, but she doubts she’ll ever be close enough to Lexa to tell her about her dreams - that red sash working as a blindfold, Clarke kneeling in front of her, pledging her allegiance to her.

Lexa looks back at her, takes her out of her reverie, “How do you even remember all that?”

Swallowing past the fist lodged in her throat, Clarke shrugs. “Well, I was falling for you, so. I paid attention,” she says in a casual tone, making it sound like it doesn’t hurt to remember those days, the first time she realized Lexa was something _more_ , something she never expected to find again.

A hint of something flashes in Lexa’s eyes, the green sparking a little brighter than a moment ago, but it’s gone before Clarke can name it as Lexa raises her eyebrows and works her jaw before glancing at the floor. She wants to close the small distance between them, tilt Lexa’s chin up and press their lips together, tell her that feeling never went away, but Clarke forces herself to grit her teeth and take a step back instead.

Folding her hands in front of her, Clarke wills her heart to stop hammering against her ribcage - because it’s getting ridiculous already, because she hasn’t known a calm moment since she knocked on Lexa’s door.

After what feels like hours, Lexa looks up and meet Clarke’s eyes - there’s something in them again, something Clarke can’t pinpoint, something that steals her breath and everything she wanted to say. More than ever, she wishes she could read Lexa’s mind and know what she thinks about it all, what she isn’t telling her - Clarke wonders if it’s something along the lines of “ _couldn’t you have fucking stayed and done all of this without breaking my heart?_ ”

Lexa turns away from her again and Clarke lets her, because she doesn’t have the right to ask for her attention anymore. Clarke bites the tip of her tongue to keep herself from saying more than she should and watches Lexa taking everything in again, looking at the paintings around her with new eyes - Clarke can tell that much, can see them shining bright now when they were dull and hard only moments ago, can see her mouth agape trying to form the words she wants to say.

Before Lexa can say anything, they hear footsteps coming from the hallway, growing in volume and intensity as it approaches them. Clarke barely registers that _Aden_ is the mop of brown hair that flashes past them, but Lexa catches him by his shirt before he crashes into the painting sitting in the middle of the room.

“What did I tell you about running?” Lexa chides him, brushing his hair away from his eyes, and Clarke can’t help but be in pure awe of Lexa’s maternal instinct.

“You said to stay where you can see me,” Aden shrugs like his mother doesn’t make any sense, peering past her to look at the walls peppered with paintings. He points at the one he almost ran into. “Mommy, is this you?”

Brushing his hair back once more, she whispers theatrically, “You’ll have to ask Clarke, baby.”

“Is it my mommy?” Aden asks Clarke, looking at her with wide, curious eyes and cheeks flushed from running to them.

Clarke nods. “Yes, it is.” Aden takes a step towards the painting and Clarke looks up, meets Lexa’s eyes and they share a look that is too loaded with things unsaid, with emotions shoved down deep for years, with everything they can’t bring up with a four year old in between them

“And you drawed everything?” He lifts his little hand to touch the painting but Lexa pulls him back before he reaches it, and Clarke hums in conformation, smiling at the sweet way he conjugates the verb. “You’re very good. She’s good, isn’t she, mom?”

“Yes, Clarke certainly is very talented,” Lexa pins him to her thigh as if she’s sensing that he wants to touch everything. Clarke doesn’t really mind and has half a mind to tell Lexa to let him be, but she can’t tell if it’d do her any favors.

Aden nods, agreeing with his mom, and Clarke searches her mind for something to say. She has to actively fight the urge to ask if Lexa is mad at her because she knows it wouldn’t come across as anything but childish, like she’s a kid who knows they did something they weren’t supposed to and are tiptoeing around a parent. But she needs to know. She needs Lexa to tell her, with words and not a look, what she thinks about this exhibit.

She’s about to ask when Aden rocks on his heels and turns to Lexa, “Can I have some juice, please?”

Clarke feels herself starting to panic, because she knew a Aden would be coming along with Lexa to the gallery and didn’t think to bring any snacks or anything for him, but then she sees Lexa reaching into her bag. _Oh_ , _of course_.

Her bag is big enough to fit a good sized house plant inside and somehow, Clarke hadn’t noticed it before - she cuts herself some slack since she still doesn’t have her own heartbeat under control. Lexa fishes out a juice box and a ziplock bag with baby carrots, but Aden makes a face at them and shakes his head until his mom put it back inside with a pointed look at him.

Clarke watches with something close to fascination as Lexa unwraps the straw and puts it in place, lifting the juice box flaps up before giving it to Aden, “Here you go. Hold it by the little wings, okay?”

“‘Kay! Thank you!” He chims out as he secures his grip on the flaps and chases the straw to take a first sip. “Can I go sit over there?” Aden points his juice box to a general direction and turns to Clarke with a toothy grin, “I like that one the best.”

Clarke follows his gaze, but there are four paintings in the corner he pointed to and she doesn’t really know what to do, so she just nods excitedly at him.

“Yes, you may go. But sit on the bench until you’re done and be careful with your juice,” Lexa tells him as he takes another sip, spilling a little of it on the top of box, and hurries along, crossing the distance towards his favorite painting before his mom changes her mind, “No wandering!”

Clarke bites her tongue to keep her smile from growing too wide - it’s one hell of a sight to see Lexa caring after her son, worrying about him even when he’s less than ten feet away, making sure he behaves without being too stern. Being a mom _really_ suits her.

Aden perches himself on the bench, holding his juice box up as he scoots back far enough that his legs are stretched in front of him and he’s right in front of his favorite painting - _oh_. It’s the one where Lexa- the Commander is kissing her new lover, a blonde girl that Clarke refuses to admit has any resemblance to herself.

Among all the other paintings, all covered in muddy greys and earthy tones, that one looks incredibly rich and bright. The background shines with all the colors in the rainbow and Clarke knows that’s probably why it’s his favorite, why it’s so interesting to look at.

But she can’t help but take his approval a step forward.

Clarke turns to see if Lexa is looking at her son with the same amusement as she is, but instead, finds her staring at the painting in front of them, her brows furrowed, her lips pursed. “Have I upset you?” Clarke asks, because she needs to know and she can’t tell if Lexa’s expression is good or bad.

Lexa looks up with a jerk, almost startled, almost as if she had forgotten Clarke was there at all. She sighs, the faintest hint of a smile tilting her lips up, and shakes her head, “It’s definitely a bit overwhelming to see my face repeated in so many canvases, but no, you haven’t upset me, Clarke. It’s very flattering.”

Relief washes over her.

For a moment there, Clarke really thought this was too much, that Lexa would leave the gallery straight to her office so she could write a restraining order against her, that she had crossed more lines than she could count. But Lexa isn’t mad at her.

Clarke nods, her eyes glued to Lexa’s lips, to the smile that is almost not there at all. “Okay. Good.”

“And Aden is right,” Lexa adds and Clarke glances up, finding her eyes as warm as her voice when she says her son’s name, “You _are_ very good. All of this-” she waves vaguely around, looking at a few paintings before meeting Clarke’s eyes again, “I knew you had it in you, Clarke. From the moment I saw your first painting, I knew it.”

Clarke can barely remember how to breathe.

Lexa holds her gaze for a moment longer before turning to look at Aden, who’s happily sipping on his juice while babbling away to the painting. Clarke can’t do much besides stare at Lexa.

It was just a moment, a second more for old time’s sake, but Clarke can tell Lexa has more to say - she doesn’t know if it’s angry yelling across a room or soft murmuring against her skin, can’t even take a fair guess at that, but she knows there’s more to their conversation.

They’re not done yet.

They can’t be done yet. This can’t be it.

But there’s a deep sadness in her forest green eyes and Clarke knows she’s the reason for it. She sees it, clear as fucking day. She’s the one who gave up and walked away when things got hard, she’s the one who broke them.

If she had the chance to rewind time and go back to the day she left, knowing everything she knows now, Clarke would still do the same. Even if she wants to punch her past self square in the face, she knows she would do the same. Because everything she went through, all the heartache she blames herself for, shaped her into the person she is today.

But, _God_ , she would give them a few months.

If she could go back in time and change things, she’d give them enough time to learn how to cook each other’s favorite meals, to binge watch an entire show cuddling in their pajamas, to walk aimlessly on a Saturday morning with their hands clasped together as they searched for somewhere to have brunch in. She would give them more time.

As she maps Lexa’s side profile, committing to memory the new laughter lines, Clarke allows herself to mourn the years they didn’t share, the years that are spread in between them like a road she doesn’t know if she’s allowed to cross.

“Have dinner with me.” Clarke blurts out before she fully realizes what she’s asking. It took a lot of convincing for Lexa to step into her gallery, heavens only know what it’ll take for them to have a meal together.

Lexa whips her head towards her, eyes bulging in surprise, “What?”

“We haven’t talked in _so long_ . I-” The ‘ _I miss you_ ’ gets stuck in her throat. She doesn’t have the right to say that, not yet. Clarke bites her lip, shifts her weight from one foot to another, holding her breath as she tries again, “We should catch up.”

Lexa blinks at her and turns to look at Aden again, wrapping her arms around her middle. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Come on, Lex,” the nickname slips past her lips before she has the good sense to shove it back down her throat and Clarke can see Lexa almost wincing, like it physically hurts her to hear it coming from her. If she sounds flirtier than she meant to, Clarke decides to brush past it, “One meal, that’s all I’m asking. As friends. Nothing more.”

Maybe it’s the nickname, maybe it’s Clarke bursting back into her life after all these years, maybe it’s a mix of everything that happened, but something, _something_ seems to dawn on Lexa - like she’s remembering all the heartache Clarke caused her, all the days she had to peel herself from bed when all she wanted was to melt into it, all the tears she shed.

And just like that, Lexa grows hard.

Her arms tighten around her and she tilts her chin up almost defiantly, “We were never friends, Clarke.”

It stings, but she’s not wrong. “Then give me a chance to become one.”

Lexa turns to her and Clarke can swear that for a moment, a split second, she sees affection in her eyes, “You lost that chance a long time ago.”

“As a thank you, then.” Clarke knows she’s pushing her way towards a restraining order, knows she’s nearing _creep_ territory now, but she holds her ground. They can’t be done. “For the inspiration.”

Lexa sighs. “You’re not giving up, are you?” Her voice is exasperated, but Clarke clings to the hope that she’s amused under all that - it’s a pipe dream, but what isn’t these days? “Fine. Dinner, but that’s it. I can’t go through any of that again. I have Aden to think about and he’s the most important thing in my life - the _only_ important thing.”

There’s an olive branch poking through the almost completely shut door and Clarke holds on to it for dear life, “I get it. Aden comes first.” Clarke nods and doesn’t even try to hide her smile, lets Lexa know how it makes her feel, lets her see how _she_ makes her feel.

“Speaking of, I should get him home.” Lexa turns to him and Clarke follows her gaze. Aden is lying on his side now, one arm under his head, his free hand still holding the flap on his juice box, staring at the painting with droopy eyes. Then she turns back to Lexa, smiling with so much fondness it makes Clarke’s chest ache, “We spent the afternoon at the park and he didn’t stop running around for a second. He needs to nap before he gets too cranky to sleep and well, it’ll be a long night if he does.”

For a moment, Lexa forgets who she’s with - Clarke can tell that much. She just takes in the little miracle that is her son, his knees tucked to his chest, his cheek squished in a way that makes him pout in his sleepy state.

“Yeah, sure,” Clarke nods and doesn’t fight her amused smile when the tips of Lexa’s ear grow hot pink, like she’s just remembering that Clarke is there and that she shared maybe a bit too much, “And about dinner, I’ll call you.” As soon as she says it, Clarke remembers she doesn’t have Lexa’s number anymore and she probably doesn’t feel like giving it to her, “I’ll call your firm. I’m sure I can get one of your interns to pass a note to you.”

Clarke smirks, because it’s a joke, an allusion to old times. Lexa barely tilts the corner of her lips up, but it’s a victory already, “Calling me at the firm works. I’ll make sure my assistant knows to put you through and we’ll work out the details.”

It sounds like a business meeting and Clarke lets it be, simply nods as Lexa walks towards Aden. Later, she’ll have time to panic over where to take Lexa and how to sweep her off her feet, whether she should bring flowers or meet her at the restaurant. For now, she takes comfort in knowing Lexa isn’t completely opposed to trying to be friends - even if the thought of going to dinner with Clarke is enough to annoy her.

Maybe she could find a way to have Lexa in her life after all.

Lexa gently shakes Aden awake and Clarke smiles at the way his eyes widen in fear for a moment, then relax when he sees his mom. She picks up his juice box at the same time she pulls him up, steadying him as he gathers his bearings again, wrapping her hand around his so they can go home.

All her movements are seamless with the practiced ease that comes with motherhood and Clarke lets her heart pound painfully against her ribcage.

“Mommy, did you tell Clarke I’m gonna paint my hair pink too?” Aden says in a sleepy mumble, stumbling to catch up with his mom.

Clarke crouches in front of him, crinkling her nose in a silly smile, “Well, I think you’re gonna look great. Maybe your mommy could dye her tips pink like mine, so we’ll all match.” That perks up his attention and he breathes out an excited ‘ _yes_ ’. Clarke looks up and has to will the butterflies in her stomach to stay quiet when she sees Lexa chuckling lightly. “It was very nice to meet you, Aden.”

Aden takes her stretched hand and shakes it with a loss less inhibition now, “You too!”

“We should go,” Lexa says, almost apologetic, and Clarke stands up. She wants to wrap her arms around Lexa in a hug that is years overdue and press a kiss to her cheek, wants to hold her close just for a moment.

But she settles for nodding and standing to the side, “Thank you. For coming. It- It meant a lot.”

Lexa nods curtly and ushers Aden along, who turns back to wave at her right before they go down the hallway. Clarke waves back and watches them go, the ghost of a smile still on her lips as she turns to look at her paintings one more time, walking towards the one Aden claims to be his favorite.

Clarke thought about Lexa a _lot_ in these last few years.

Sometimes, she’d go weeks without thinking about her, too caught up on deadlines and assignments to do much but long for her bed at all times. But then, she’d sit down with a beer and let the movie play on her TV without paying attention to one word. Right then, Clarke would allow herself to think about the woman who still clung to her heart and wonder what her life was like, what she might be doing in that same moment.

But never, not even in her wildest dreams, she had imagined she would find Lexa with a son, a tiny human being who she clearly loved more than life itself. She never imagined she’d stumble to find her words, to quiet her heart when she realized that Lexa had a wife waiting for her at home, where she’d go back to a perfect family Clarke had no right to meddle in.

She almost wishes she had invited them for the opening, because maybe she should meet Lexa’s wife before taking her out for dinner - Clarke forces herself to ignore the little whisper coming from her heart, the one that says that Lexa never told her outright that she has a wife, that Clarke is just assuming.

But she shakes her head. It would have been too much too soon.

Clarke grabs her things, stacking up the cups of coffee that got her through today, and allow herself to take everything in before she leaves to get ready for the opening, to put her best entrepreneur façade on and pretend that business doesn’t scare the living shit out of her, to get all dressed up and come back to see what everyone thinks about her artwork.

With one less look around before she locks the door, Clarke allows herself to really have faith that she can make things right again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few of the paintings described were based on [moishpain's art](http://sheep-in-clouds.tumblr.com): [one](http://78.media.tumblr.com/c3d3d431a64d964bc46178974dd76022/tumblr_ohk09ap56D1snj6cco1_500.png), [two](http://78.media.tumblr.com/dc327d3db01d3eb87b285c54b3d5f048/tumblr_obcm550NUA1snj6cco1_500.png), [three](http://78.media.tumblr.com/a568f9b004fd68b47ff38dd1a559eeb9/tumblr_o3y7nmwHZO1snj6cco1_500.png).


	2. looking for (and losing) hope

“Did I tell you about our new literature teacher? Wells… something.” Clarke grasps at the memory that feels just out of reach as she sinks further down on Raven’s couch, propping her feet up on the coffee table. He had introduced himself on Monday, right before first period, when all the teachers were still in varying degrees of falling asleep, so it’s a bit fuzzy. And maybe, having three beers before dinner hadn’t been Clarke’s greatest idea, “Wells Jaha, I think?”

Raven gives her a pointed look. “You say his last name like that’s the thing that’ll make me realize I know him,” she mocks Clarke as she shuffles forward to snatch the remote from the coffee table, clenching her jaw and gripping her thigh as she stretches. Her leg must be hurting like hell. “Is he cute?”

Winter in Canada makes Raven have more bad days than good ones. Most days, she’ll grunt, grit her teeth, power through the pain and the odd stares she gets, take a hot bath in the evening to help her strained muscles. Sometimes the pain gets too much and she can’t even get up from bed - those are the days Clarke can’t look at herself in the mirror.

But after being friends for a while, Clarke knows better than to try and do things for her. If Raven needs help, she’ll ask for it; if she doesn’t explicitly asks, it’s better to leave her the fuck alone - Clarke learned that lesson the hard way. She still remembers Raven screaming at her in the middle of the kitchenware section of Target, her eyes filled with so much anger that Clarke is still pretty sure she was two minutes away from throwing her leg brace at her hard enough to break a bone.

The Friends marathon they were watching is over, so Raven browses through the channels, looking for something to watch. Clarke watches the channels changing way too fast for her to register anything and takes another swig from her beer, answering Raven’s question, “I guess so, but he’s also very much engaged.”

“Aw, damn it! The good ones are always taken,” Raven teases her, paying half attention to their conversation as she settles on a cooking show where the judges are way meaner than they should be.

Now it’s Clarke’s turn to give her a pointed look. “And  _ you _ say that as if either of us would make a move if he weren’t,” Clarke rolls her eyes and turns back to the TV, assuming the talk about going after cute literature teachers is over. Raven has been living with Anya for  _ years _ , long enough for them to have joined bank accounts and argue over who’s doing the dishes on a daily basis, giving any old married couple a run for their money. And Clarke, well-

“You could,” Raven says in a more serious tone than Clarke had expected her to, like she really thinks Clarke should be out there, trying her luck with any beautiful person that comes her way.

Clarke sighs. They had agreed from the start that talking about her love life, or lack thereof, was a definite  _ no-no _ \- the last thing she needs is Raven turning stones Clarke doesn’t know how to explain. But it’s only a matter of time before Raven gets tired of it and starts setting Clarke up on blind dates.

She knows Raven means well, but that doesn’t make it any easier to think about, “You know I wouldn’t.”

Tilting her mostly empty beer bottle this way and that, Raven studies her through narrowed eyes, “Are you telling me there was no one in all those years?” Clarke chooses that moment to become completely engrossed in the process of searing meat and not answer that question - no, she’s not saying  _ that _ , but there’s a difference between picking someone up at a bar to warm her bed for a night and finding someone to build a family with. But her silence seems like answer enough for Raven, “God, you are  _ so _ screwed.”

“I know that,” Clarke says, because she does. There’s a pile of bricks resting on her chest that is constantly threatening to break her ribs, but thinking about Lexa makes it harder to breathe under all the weight. “Can we move on?”

“Listen,” Raven turns to her and Clarke wants to groan, to bolt out the door, to ignore whatever it is that she needs to listen. But she stands her ground and turns to Raven, holding her gaze, “I know I promised to stay out of it but- Dude, you need to get out there, to meet new people, to open up-”

“ _ Raven _ ,” Clarke says in a sharp voice, interrupting her before she gets looped into a motivational speech she does not have the energy to put up with - not that Raven doesn’t give good ones, with all the colorful expletives she uses, “I’ll see how dinner goes first. Then- Then we’ll talk.”

Her stomach does a full loop when she imagines Lexa in a candlelit restaurant, drinking wine and talking in soft tones, smiling coyly when Clarke grows bold and reaches for her hand. She forces herself to believe that it  _ can _ happen, even after all the heartache and bitterness, that this isn’t a lost cause - that  _ they _ aren’t a lost cause.

“Yeah, when is that again?” Raven asks, her voice tilting at the end as if she simply forgot something Clarke said in passing, as if she doesn’t know about the hours Clarke has spent staring at her phone in the last week, trying to find the courage to dial a number she has all but memorized by now.

Clarke groans in distress and sinks further into the couch, willing the cushions to swallow her whole.

Thankfully, Raven drops the subject just before Clarke agrees to go out with one of the cute engineers she works with and they bounce back to easier topics, harmless ones, leaving the heavy stuff for when they’re both on the wrong side of drunk.

Between ordering pizza and getting more beers, they both talk about their weeks, like they usually do when they get together on a lazy Thursday. Raven complains about still being treated like an outsider by her peers simply because she’s a woman even after saving everyone’s ass  _ once again _ and if she dives into a feminist rant, Clarke lets her run with it. When she sinks back, almost deflated after arguing with invisible men for the better part of ten minutes, Raven asks about Wells.

Raven has been pestering Clarke to be more friendly with the people she works with for months now, despite Clarke telling her she’d  _ gladly _ make friends with those assholes if they didn’t treat art class like it’s something that keeps them from having more advanced math classes - “well,  _ Susan _ , I don’t see the kids doodling calculus in the margins of their art notebooks”. But Wells seems like the kind of teacher Clarke could see herself being friends with - he’s as chill as they come, very  _ Dead Poets Society _ with his suede jacket and passion for the classics.

Wiggling her eyebrows wildly enough for Clarke to almost mistake her for a cartoon character, Raven teases her about “a match made in heaven” and how she “might drop by to see Mr. Suede in person.” Before Clarke can tell her how not appropriate at all that is, Raven tells her to chill and explains that the principal reached out for her a couple of weeks ago to see if she could sit down with Sinclair, the most excitable physics teacher Clarke has ever met, and help them come up with a good pitch for a robotics program.

It does calm Clarke down, if only a little - because there’s no stopping Raven when she’s on a mission and Clarke really doesn’t know Wells enough to explain  _ Raven _ . But then Raven starts talking about autonomous block programming and VEX challenges and Clarke realizes she might make good friends with their new literature teacher after all - they’re both way too passionate about their fields and could take turns chattering each other’s ears off while Clarke is off to the side, day drinking.

In a good day, Clarke understands around one out of every five words Raven says about engineering. Even less when she forgets who she’s talking to and starts ranting about radar cross-section and avionics in terms way too technical for Clarke to even dream about knowing. So Clarke still nods when Raven talks about how she plans on making the project more interesting to kids and makes what Clarke hopes are appropriate noises at her wide gestures when Raven goes on and on about making robots out of LEGO pieces, but she lets her mind drift.

When Clarke bumped into Raven by pure chance years after that one lunch that helped everything spiral down, the  _ last _ thing that crossed her mind was that they’d become friends, that Raven would become someone Clarke could honestly call her best friend. She hadn’t had one of those in a long while, so long she had forgotten what it felt like to have a friend who’d actually check in with her, make sure she was fine after a rough day at work, who’d make her get out of her shell a little more, someone who knows everything there is to know about her. At least, most of it.

Clarke had never been a friendless outcast, but her friendships had always been circumstantial - study buddies wouldn't call her on weekends and the people she met at parties wouldn't care if she failed her classes, none of them lasted past school. She had some friends in the agency she had worked at, a few clients that took genuine interest in her, some other people she had met somewhere else and had weaved their way into her life, but neither knew the whole scope of her life. She was never alone, but she felt lonely more often than not.

She can't remember ever having a friend like Raven.

Their friendship felt  _ right _ from the get go, like they clicked the moment Clarke almost knocked herself out trying to avoid a full collision with Raven.

Before moving to Canada, Clarke had been a high school art teacher for two years - she liked to believe she knew how to navigate the inner workings of teaching and the US and Canada had school systems similar enough for her to think she got this. But somehow, five weeks into a new semester was enough to drive Clarke close to a mental breakdown.

She had been working too much and sleeping too little for almost a month now, so when she literally ran into Raven on her way to the teachers’ lounge to get more coffee and maybe nap somewhere, Clarke was pretty sure she was hallucinating.

But she had felt too solid to be a figment of her mind, “Raven?” Clarke had tried her luck, really hoping the woman looking at her like she was trying to piece together an impossible puzzle was real. “It’s Clarke.”

Raven had lighten up, as if finally connecting the name to the person. “Oh, hey! Lexa’s ex, right?” It had taken Clarke all her strength not to cringe at that, not to let how much it stung to be called  _ Lexa’s ex _ . But she had nodded anyway, because as far as Raven was concerned, that’s all she was - someone from her girlfriend’s best friend’s past, someone who hadn’t been worth keeping a memory of.

Clarke had treaded lightly, exchanging pleasantries and wondering how much Raven knew - definitely not the whole truth, if she hadn’t punched the daylight out of Clarke the moment she had laid eyes on her. When Raven had asked her if she wanted to go get coffee later and catch up, Clarke had felt guilty, wondered if she should just walk away and never look back - some days she thinks it’s what she should have done, some days she is keenly aware she does not deserve Raven.

But Clarke had been aching for a friend, for much longer than just the two months she’d been in Canada, so she had agreed. Raven had dropped by her classroom after her meeting to get more girls to join STEM fields, had made fun of Clarke’s paint stained jeans, had gotten Clarke to share more than she had shared with anyone in a long time - it all had felt easy, their friendship blossoming without much to hold it back.

Coffee became lunch after Raven’s presentation to the kids, then a text message to ask how Clarke's meeting with the art dealer had gone. Before Clarke noticed, she was talking to Raven almost every day, meeting up for a beer - because Anya wouldn't be caught dead with one and Raven missed it. They forgot about their pasts and talked about a new bar they had to check out that weekend, they deemed certain topics off limits and fell back into the comfortable company they found in each other.

Before Clarke realized, Raven had become her best friend.

If Clarke refused to talk about her family or her past right up until she left Lexa, Raven respected that - the same way Clarke didn’t probe into Raven’s relationship with Anya and the incident that made her need her leg brace. They built their friendship around their own wounds and it worked for them. But some days, when Raven is bedridden with pain and Clarke can’t look at her in the eye when she comes by to drop whatever medicine she needs, Clarke feels the secret she keeps from Raven weighing down on them, making it hard to keep her head up.

It’s the thing that could shake the entire foundation of their friendship, but what Raven doesn’t know, can’t hurt her - that’s what Clarke tells herself when the guilt gets too much, when she can’t shove it to the back of her mind anymore.

A loud sound yanks her out of her reverie and both Clarke and Raven look towards the source - Anya had come home looking ready to murder a man and had taken it out on the front door, slamming it shut with so much force it almost shook in its hinges. Clarke has her beer halfway to her lips as she watches Anya marching inside and straight to the liquor cabinet, pouring herself a healthy dose of whiskey without sparing a single glance at them.

Anya isn’t exactly the warmest person Clarke has ever met, but something in the way she downs half her whiskey like it’s water tells Clarke she is not to be messed with today.

“Hard day at work?” Raven asks in a soft, warm tone, stretching her hand out for Anya until she walks over and sits on the arm of the couch and Raven can wrap her arms around her waist in an awkward hug. Anya sinks into the embrace, kissing Raven’s temple and breathing her in like she’s the only one capable of keeping her sane, and Clarke averts her eyes.

The moment seems too intimate for Clarke to be looking at, so she turns her attention back to her beer, downs what’s left in it and tries to calm her stomach down after it flutters with the thought of being held like that, being loved like that. There’s a little voice in the back of her head that tells Clarke that she had that kind of love and she threw it away, that she got scared and ruined the one good thing she had in her life, that she’ll waste the rest of her days searching for it.

Clarke wonders how much tequila it’d take to drown that little voice.

“Have you called Lexa yet?” Anya asks from her nest in between Raven’s arms, and Clarke can’t help but be amused the contrast between how cozy she looks wrapped around her girlfriend and how she could pulverize someone with her glare only. 

Before Clarke finds the courage to look back at Anya and mumble that she’s still working on it, Raven rats her out, “Nah, she’s stalling.”

Anya sips at her whiskey and stares at Clarke, who becomes wildly interested in peeling the label from her bottle. “Did you know Lexa isn’t talking to me because I helped your ass? Something about learning where my loyalties lie,” Anya rolls her eyes and sinks further into Raven - no wonder she came in ready to kill a man. "Of course she’s making work  _ miserable _ . I’m pretty sure all the interns want to either die or quit. Probably die, because if they want to quit they'll have to talk to Lexa. And lately, even I am thinking death sounds like a better idea."

“You better sweep her off her feet soon,” Raven says, laugh coloring her words like even she doesn’t believe Clarke can do that, and waves her empty bottle until Clarke gets the hint.

Peeling herself from the couch with more effort than usual, Clarke walks to the fridge, gets two more beers, opens them and takes a long gulp from hers before walking back. Half of her wants to call off their agreement to not talk about Lexa - if Lexa was off limits, so was Clarke’s past - because she could really use some pointers. Because she had walked into Lexa’s life without knowing she’d find a child - she’s still mad at Raven for never mentioning, not even in passing, that Lexa is a mom - and now she’s taking Lexa out to dinner without any clues as to what she should expect.

Clarke drags her feet back towards the living room, handing the beer to Raven and wondering if either of them would tell her anything about whether or not Lexa was married and if she should tone her expectations way down. She plops down on the couch and sighs, “Yeah, I’m not sure I can do that.”

“What?” Anya asks, her tone sharp enough to make Clarke wince. It makes sense - she wants Lexa to either get over Clarke or find a way to go back to her normal, and Clarke avoiding putting an end to her misery isn’t helping. “Where the fuck is that confident Clarke who pestered me until she got what she wanted?”

It’s been only a few weeks since Clarke had barged into Anya’s home office, brimming with confidence she didn’t really feel and convinced her that she was the one for Lexa. Anya had refused to talk to Clarke or even stay in the same room as her, which left little room for anyone to wonder how much of the whole story Anya knew. But Clarke had waited too long for Anya to give her a chance to talk, had waited and couldn’t wait anymore. So she had held her chin up, looked Anya in the eye and told her that Lexa would be happy with her, that they were meant to be, that Anya knew how happy Lexa had been with her.

After almost dropping down to her knees and begging, Clarke had convinced Anya to give her Lexa’s address. She refused to say anything else. Maybe she knew back then that this would never work.

Something shifts inside her chest and Clarke realizes that this is the first time they’re actually having a conversation about Lexa, about what  _ her and Lexa _ could be. It feels oddly comforting to have someone to toss ideas back and forth, to maybe get real advice that she could follow instead of depending on her traitor brain and wits alone. But she doesn’t allow herself to imagine how easier all of this could have been if she didn’t need to have her walls up whenever they talked about Lexa - she could have done this sooner, she could have known about her son, she could have asked about his other mom, she could have saved herself the worry that always hits her right after four in the morning.

Still avoiding Anya’s glare, Clarke shrugs, “That Clarke is banging her head against the wall after actually seeing Lexa.”

“What did you expect, Clarke? Really? That she welcomed you with open arms?” Anya makes it sound like it’s  _ such _ a ridiculous idea and Clarke knows it is, but still, a tiny part of her had hoped. “If you pulled a shit like that on me, I would have you hunted down and fucking murdered,” Anya says in a tone that lets Clarke know that she fully means it, that she thinks Lexa was dumb to not do the same. But then she turns to Raven, winking playfully at her, “Gentle reminder, babe.”

Raven rolls her eyes, murmuring against her shoulder something about how she’s not  _ that _ stupid and Clarke sulks.

She knows she fucked up.

If only she had had a little more courage, if only she had been a little braver and pushed through her insecurities, if only she’d been a little more selfish and faced the months of tears and heartache they were bound to have before things got better, if only she had swallowed her pride and relied on Lexa before she could stand on her own… If only,  _ if only _ . 

Clarke has no one but herself to blame.

“But Griffin, don’t give up just yet,” Anya says, softer than she had ever since she walked in, saving Clarke from wondering where they could have been if she hadn’t been so scared - maybe she and Lexa would be sitting in this same couch, hanging out with their friends; maybe they’d be at home, at  _ their _ home, with their own baby. Clarke forces herself to focus on Anya, “I’ve known Lexa since before Costia and she might have pushed everything that happened between you two down, but she still has feelings for you.”

“Some of those feelings might be murderous,” Raven winks at Clarke as she takes a swig from her beer, trying to lighten the mood, but it only makes the void in Clarke’s stomach grow and threaten to swallow her whole.

“Probably, but that’s not helpful,” Anya chuckles, tucking a strand of hair behind Raven’s ear before wrapping her arm around her shoulder, turning back to Clarke, “Even if she does want you dead now, she loved you. And when Lexa loves, she loves deeply. It hasn’t gone away, you just need to… Dig your way back in.”

Digging her way back into someone’s life isn’t something Clarke is used to. She’s used to pushing people away, to building walls around her that she knows no one can crack, to running when things get tough, to ignoring the problem until it goes away. Digging is definitely not her strong suit and Clarke needs a bigger shovel.

Raven nods, cuddling up to Anya in a way that makes Clarke want to bolt out the door and curl up in bed until she forgets what lonely means. “Yeah, you guys were together for almost a year,” Raven says, trying to be helpful, “Sure, what you did was a shitstorm and she should beat you up, but fuck- What you two had was the real deal. It’s the thing that’s worth fighting for.”

Clarke might use that shovel to dig a hole and bury herself in it.

There’s a  _ reason _ why Lexa was off limits and this is it.

Meeting Anya’s eyes, Clarke understands her clenched jaw and quirked eyebrow in a second:  _ do not bring up anything that you don’t want to explain _ . Because Raven doesn’t know the truth. Because Raven wouldn’t be helping Clarke if she did.

The version that Raven knows isn’t a lie. 

She thinks they had split up because Clarke couldn’t handle being away from her girlfriend so many weeks at a time and moving to another country was out of the question. Raven thinks that Clarke chose her career - as an artist, not as anything else - over her love life because she thought that was the right choice back then, because Lexa wasn’t worth the sacrifice.

It’s not a lie, because Clarke did say most of those things, but it’s not the whole truth either.

Staring at the beer bottle cradled in between her palms, Clarke sighs more defeatedly than she expected and says in a tiny voice, “I don’t even know where to take her.”

“It’s been almost a week since you asked her out,” Raven rolls her eyes and flat out mocks her as Anya presses a kiss to her temple, walking towards the kitchen and leaving them alone to talk. Clarke doesn’t blame her for not wanting to have anything to do with this conversation, “How the fuck can you not know?”

Clarke focuses on Anya moving around the kitchen, dropping her glass in the sink, opening the fridge to get water, pouring it in a glass, drinking half of it, tying her hair in a knot on the top of her head, finishing her water. It’s easier than to look at Raven, so eager to help, so blissfully unaware of who she’s helping. “If I need to sweep her off her feet, I- I can’t plan all that in a week.”

“Dude, you walked to her place with no game plan?” Raven asks in disbelief and Clarke sips at her beer, makes a face when it froths in her mouth and forces herself to swallow past the bitterness - she can’t quite tell if it’s the warm beer or something else. “Is this the first time you try to win someone over or?”

Clarke is about to tell her that yes, it is - she’s never done this before and she’s feeling lost and scared she’ll fuck everything up even more - when Anya pauses on her way to the stairs and turns to her. Clarke holds her hard gaze and she can almost see the gears inside Anya’s brain working to decide if she should help her or if it wasn’t worth it. After a moment, Anya sighs, “She hasn’t had Chinese in forever. Maybe there’s something there.”

_ Oh _ .

Her chest tightens at the thought, it leaves her gasping for air and tugging at her shirt, trying to free her heart from the invisible fist wrapped around it. 

Because she remembers eating Chinese food with Lexa. She remembers swapping childhood stories and laughing more than she had in years. She remembers discussing baby names and Lexa in her sweatshirt. She remembers allowing herself to  _ be _ herself in front of someone else for the first time, she remembers eating enough for six people, she remembers falling in love with Lexa to the point of no return.

It sounds like a good place to start as any.

“Babe, do you know if Lexa is still at the office?” Raven shouts to Anya, who’s halfway up the stairs already, and Clarke can’t do much but stare at her friend in pure disbelief. The idea of calling Lexa so suddenly, without any solid plan and without a few hours to overthink it all, is enough to make Clarke’s heart quicken.

Anya glances at her wristwatch and shouts back as she climbs the rest of the stairs, “Yeah, she has a meeting at nine. Clarke might still catch her before it starts.”

“I’m not calling her  _ now _ ,” Clarke states in a firm voice because she is  _ not _ . Raven hums in agreement, but pulls out her phone and opens the dial pad before Clarke can even blink, “Raven! I’m serious.”

All that her reproach gets her is a sly smirk from Raven, “If you don’t call her right now, you’ll over think yourself into not doing it at all.” She does have a point, but Clarke refuses to admit that when Raven shoves her phone into her hands, a faint ringing tone reaching her. “Here you go.”

Her already fast heartbeat feels like a hammer in her chest, pounding painfully against her ribs, making it hard to breathe. It takes her a moment to put the phone to her ear and closes her eyes, willing her beer to stay put as her stomach turns.

The longer she waits, the antsier she feels.

Maybe Lexa left for her meeting already. Maybe her assistant will answer the phone and tell her Lexa can’t talk now and she should call back tomorrow. Maybe no one will answer at all because it’s way past the firm’s closing time. Maybe she’ll throw up before anything can happen.

“Hello.”

Clarke feels all blood draining from her face as her eyes shoot open, the voice at the other end of the receiver too familiar to leave any room for doubt. 

Oh,  _ fuck _ . 

“Lexa?” she asks, knowing the answer. Her mouth is dry, her tongue turned to cotton, and Clarke shifts on the couch, half wanting to go grab some water, half afraid she’ll collapse the moment she gets up. Whatever confidence she had in the past is gone, leaving her empty and defenseless.

There’s a pause and she strains to hear what’s happening, but Lexa seems to be all but holding her breath. “Clarke,” Lexa finally says, the bitterness tainting her tone not enough to keep Clarke’s heart from skipping a beat - Lexa knows her voice.

“Is this a bad time?” Clarke asks softly, giving Lexa a quick and fast way out. Maybe she interrupted something, maybe Lexa is waiting for another call. 

“No, of course not,” Lexa says, her voice polished and even - the complete opposite of Clarke’s, “I thought you’d call during business hours, that’s all.” Lexa doesn’t ask how Clarke knew she’d be at the office and Clarke doesn’t offer an explanation either.

“About dinner,” she dives right in. Clarke doesn’t ask about her day, how she’s been since they saw each other last, if her son is okay - there’s no use in avoiding the main reason why she called. “How does Saturday at eight sound?” Her voice is shaky and almost squeaky, a few octave higher than usual - Clarke can’t remember the last time she asked someone out and her uneasiness show.

There’s shuffling on the other side of the line and Clarke imagines Lexa sitting in her office, looking through a never ending pile of papers that is keeping her this late at work. “I need to confirm the details with the nanny,” Lexa says plainly, making it sound more like a business transaction than an invitation for dinner, “Or see if my mom can watch Aden.”

“Anya and I can babysit him!” Raven yells into the receiver and Clarke almost gives herself whiplash with how fast she turns to glare at her friend, mouthing “ _ what the fuck? _ ”. Raven’s only answer is a grin and two thumbs up, like she honestly believe she’s helping a lot.

“You’re with Raven,” Lexa says in a tone that could be either annoyed or disappointed, and Clarke can’t quite put her finger on why it bothers her so much. 

“Yeah,” Clarke agrees, but doesn’t say anything else - neither does Lexa and there’s a long pause too close to an awkward silence for comfort. Clarke doesn’t wait to see if Lexa will take Raven on her offer or will find an excuse to not go to dinner at all, “Okay, so. I’ll pick you up at eight?”

Lexa sighs and Clarke can almost see her pursing her lips, annoyed at herself for agreeing to it at all. “You already have my address.”

It sounds more like an accusation than anything else.

If Clarke has a hangover on Friday, she barely bothers hiding it.

Between her short temper and splitting headache, Clarke powers through her classes by sheer force of will. Her nine graders had to work in silence for the better part of the hour and the tenth graders had an impromptu assignment. Both were better off than her honors students, who got the worst of her mood and had to scramble through their backpacks to hand in their half finished sketchbooks for a grade.

She isn’t proud of it. She had drank more than she should - she drank like she did in her early twenties, when her body didn’t give up on her after the third tequila shot - and slept way less than she needed to be a proper human being. She cried herself to sleep, the tight fist wrapped around her heart squeezing too hard for her to keep it all in, and woke up feeling miserable, with puffy eyes and an upset stomach. 

So she took it out on the kids.

But the worst part is that she hadn’t even realized what a bitch she was being with her students until Wells approached her in the teachers’ lounge halfway through their lunch break and asked if she was okay. She wasn’t. And it got even worse when he talked about a few kids worried about her - not complaining or calling her names, but  _ worried _ .

By the time she walked to her car with twenty sketchbooks and a folder filled with assignments she didn’t want to grade, Clarke felt even worse than she had that morning.

Half of her wanted to drive to a liquor store and grab their cheapest vodka - hair of the dog and all that. But she resigned herself to cooking a healthy dinner to help her body recover and making enough chamomile tea to quiet even the worst of heartaches. She put on some sitcom she’d seen a thousand times already and sat down by the coffee table, browsing through sketchbooks and making notes on each drawing so her students knew what they had to work on for the Spring midterms.

Clarke doesn’t go to sleep until well past two in the morning, wanting to finish to grade all the assignments before bed, because she knows she won’t accomplish much on Saturday if the black hole in the bottom of her stomach sucking the life out of her is anything to go by. 

When she wakes up, too late for breakfast, too early for lunch, Clarke finds herself trying to keep busy until dinner, trying not to worry herself sick before then. She cleans the apartment more thoroughly than she had ever since she moved in, fleshes out some sketches she’d been working on, trying to figure out what to take to a canvas and what to lose in the pages of her sketchbook, starts to read three new books and gives up before she’s fifteen pages in, mindlessly browse the internet until her eyes are glossy and the funny comics start to blur together. 

But in the back of her mind, Clarke is constantly reminding herself of what’s at stake, how much she could lose and how much she could gain in just one meal.

She had chosen the restaurant after a more extensive research than she had thought she needed, had called ahead to make a reservation even if she didn’t have to. She had all but tossed her entire closet on the floor while choosing what to wear, had changed four time and settled for the first outfit. She had put her hair up in a bun, then worked a braid into it, then undid it and let it fall into soft waves around her face. Clarke had gone through everything she wanted to tell Lexa, had thought about what to say, when to say it, how to say. She had made sure everything was as perfect as it could be, and when she locks her door behind her, she feels almost ready for the date.

Still, when she pulls up in front of Lexa’s house a few minutes before eight, Clarke is sure her stomach can’t handle that many butterflies and it’ll jump out of her any minute now.

Looking at the flowers she brought, Clarke wonders if she should give them to Lexa or just shove them in the trunk and pretend she never even thought about bringing anything. Because Lexa might be married and if that’s the case, Clarke is already walking on thin ice with the wife by taking Lexa out for dinner, even if they are under the pretense of being two friends catching up after years. But maybe, the flowers are too much. It’d be different if they were eating in Lexa’s house, with Aden running around and her wife telling Clarke about that time Lexa did something that made her fall in love all over again.

She’s been going back and forth about this whole situation. Lexa does have a son and while she could very well have chosen to be a mother on her own, she mentioned Aden has another mom - maybe she is married and sees this as a way to get closure from Clarke, maybe they’ve split and are trying to co-parent their son, maybe Clarke is way off in all her predictions. But on the other hand, she doubts Raven and especially Anya would be pushing her towards Lexa if they knew there was someone else already - unless they wanted to punish Clarke for breaking Lexa’s hear.

Clarke sighs.

It’s no fucking wonder she can’t seem to get any sleep lately.

With one last look at the flowers, she decides to take them with her. Lexa could always throw them away - Clarke really hopes she doesn’t. It’s a simple bouquet, wildflowers and greenery wrapped in craft paper, but Clarke chose each flower with Lexa in mind, even throwing in a few blue ones that she thought Aden might enjoy. It’s the first time she ever gives flowers to someone, she really really hopes they don’t end up in the trash.

Dragging herself from her car to Lexa’s front door is only marginally less terrifying than the last time, but Clarke still feels her heart beating painfully against her ribcage as she walks up the driveway, struggles against the fist wrapped around her chest as she knocks on the door, holds her breath as she waits for Lexa to answer it.

But when the door swings open, it’s someone else.

Clarke feels her stomach sink as she takes in the girl with a cheeky smile and eyes glinting in amusement. Her blonde hair is weaved into a braid that comes from the top of her head all the way down to the side, falling over her shoulder - and that’s the only sign that she might have put some effort into her looks. She looks painfully comfortable in Lexa’s home, with an oversized shirt falling over her yoga pants, walking barefoot and answering the door for her.

“Hey! You must be Clarke,” she chirps, her smile widening into a grin. She looks young, maybe in her mid-twenties, and Clarke wonders for a moment if that’s the wife, if she should bolt back to her car and forget all about it. “Come on in, Lexa should be ready in no time,” she steps to the side and Clarke walks in even if her entire body screams at her to go back, “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“You did?” Clarke can’t keep the surprise from her voice and when her stomach flutters again, the butterflies are carrying little specks of hope.

“No, she did not,” a stern voice makes its way to them from the stairs and Clarke turns to look at Lexa, putting her earring on as she shoots daggers at the blonde. “Well, Anya did talk about you, but it was hardly that much.”

“Sure, Anya,” the girl rocks on the balls of her feet, clasping her hands on her back as she turns to Clarke, winking and talking in a make-believe voice, “Yeah, I talk to Anya. We’re friends and I’m not at all scared of her.”

Lexa sighs, looking more than mildly annoyed at her. “Harper, would you please check on Aden?” It’s obvious that Lexa has just made sure that her son is sound asleep on his bed and she can go out in peace, but it’s an excuse for them to be alone and Clarke won’t be the one complaining about it.

“Yeah,” Harper agrees, skipping up the stairs as she shouts back, “You kids have fun!”

“And that’s Aden’s nanny. She’s been with us since he came home, but sometimes she steps over some boundaries,” Lexa says once Harper is out of sight. The wording and the way she says it makes Clarke frown, but she stores that information for later.

“These, uh, these are for you,” the words catch in Clarke’s throat, but she forces herself to lift the flowers, as if to show what she’s talking about in case Lexa hadn’t noticed them. Then she adds, almost as an afterthought, “I hope it’s okay.”

Lexa takes the flowers, bringing them to her nose - it’s a sight Clarke wants to commit to memory, wants to take a picture of and frame it, wants to never forget.

“Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t it be?” Lexa says in a distant, almost dreamy voice, and Clarke watches her tracing the stem of a few of the flowers, caressing the petals and leaves as if to make sure their real. It takes her a moment before she snaps her head up and gives Clarke a tight smile, “Thank you. They’re beautiful.”

Lexa excuses herself to go put the flowers in some water and Clarke nods, takes a few steps into her home, leans against the wall in the foyer. She watches Lexa carefully unwrapping the flowers and placing them in a vase, changing the place of the flowers or greenery until she’s happy with how it looks.

For a few moments, Clarke lets herself imagine what her life would be like if she had stayed, if everything had worked out, if she hasn’t been focused only on herself and how hard it’d all be for her, if she had made it work. 

Maybe she’d be watching the same scene. Maybe they’d have bought this house together and decorated with a lot more colors, more art in the walls, more life. Maybe they’d have a child together, maybe three, maybe thinking about it. Maybe Clarke would have come home from groceries shopping or something as domestic as that with flowers for her wife and would still be leaning against the wall, watching Lexa make sure the arrangement looks beautiful, waiting for her to be ready for them to go out for date night.

But she didn’t stay.

Clarke left and now she has far too many moments to make up for, so many she doesn’t even know if she can.

Setting the vase on the coffee table, Lexa grabs her coat, drapes it over her arm and gestures for Clarke to wait a minute as she checks in on her son. As Lexa climbs the stairs on four inches heels two steps at a time, Clarke takes her in without restraints. She’s wearing a long sleeved dress, black lace on black fabric, her hair falls in gentle curls over her shoulder, and she looks  _ painfully _ good. It’s an outfit that Clarke would almost describe as  _ soft _ \- it lacks the hard edges of pant suits and pencil skirts, reminds Clarke of falling in love with springtime to the sound of vinyl records.

When Lexa comes down the stairs, Clarke has almost worked up the courage to stretch her hand out for Lexa to hold as they walk towards the car, has enough nerve to settle her hand on the small of her back as she guides them outside. But the smile the flowers had brought her is gone, a tight lipped frown taking its place.

Clarke can almost see the walls that had risen up in the two minutes Lexa was away - can see it in her drawn back shoulders, in her eyes that don’t quite meet Clarke’s anymore, the air thick with an annoyance she doesn’t know how to get rid of.

They’re back to square one.

Lexa walks past her, holding the door open for her to walk by and staying behind to lock it, as if already trying to gather the strength to make it through the night. Clarke feels her shoulders sagging and her confidence wavering, but she still waits for Lexa, still opens the car door for her, still forces herself to believe this will work.

Because it has to work.

It’s not like she expected for them to pick up right where they left off. Clarke knows there are years filled with too much sorrow and bitterness in between them, more than either of them can ignore. And she doesn’t want to ignore anything, she wants to work her way through it all, wants to apologize for what she needs to and learn what she refused to before, but Lexa being so damn cold towards her doesn’t make this any easier. 

It feels like she’s fighting a losing battle.

And if their drive to the restaurant is anything to go by, it would be wise to turn around at the next chance they got, drive Lexa home and drive herself to a liquor store, drink her regrets, bury everything she feels deep down. It would be wise and it would be easier, but it wouldn’t make her any happier.

The silence is heavy from the moment they pull off the curb and Clarke feels her fingers itching on the steering wheel, begging her to let them roam to the passenger seat - almost like muscle memory, almost like her very soul never forgot what it was like to drive a car with her hand resting on Lexa’s thigh. But she keeps her hands on the steering wheel, at the nine and three o’clock positions, gripping it so firmly her knuckles turn white, as she drives down the packed streets in a speed she could only dream about back in New York, but still too slow to run away from the awkwardness between them.

Clarke tries to make small talk, to warm them both up to a conversation, because she knows that that job will fall onto her. She knows for a fact that she’s great at chit chat, at making people comfortable with her, at pulling people out of their shell with a smile and a few words. But Lexa throws her completely off her game - so much so that she finds herself talking about the  _ weather. _ It would be a decent enough topic if they weren’t in Canada. It’s unbearably cold for a whole eight months and they’re all miserable without sunshine, so Clarke doesn’t even blame Lexa for shutting down that topic.

When they finally park in front of the restaurant, Clarke shuts the engine down and sighs along with it. Those fifteen minutes were as uncomfortable as they could have been, but she refuses to give up - things will be easier once they have ordered their food and are actually sitting in front of each other.

Taking a moment to collect herself and dig for that confidence she knew had to be inside her somewhere, Clarke grabs her purse from the backseat, climbs out of the car, adjusts her coat over her dress. It’s a simple dress, deep red with a deep neckline, because she knows she looks good in that colors, because she remembers what was Lexa’s favorite part of her. She feels mildly better about this whole night once she meets Lexa on the sidewalk, her eyes taking in the restaurant.

“We’re having Chinese food,” Lexa says as she looks away from the paper lanterns swinging by the front door and casts her eyes on Clarke. It’s not a question, but something in her eyes make Clarke falter, wonder if she really wants to get inside and bring back memories of their last time eating together.

Maybe she should have gone with the most obvious choice and taken her to an Italian restaurant with low light and unlimited breadsticks.

Clarke shuffles beside Lexa, shoving her hand in her coat pocket to keep herself from reaching out to Lexa. She lived for six years without her touch but now that she’s so close, she aches for it - because Lexa never touched her like she owned Clarke, but the other way around. Clarke tilts her head to the side, “Is it okay?”

“Yeah, it’s-” Lexa sighs and closes her eyes for a moment. It’s enough to make Clarke second guess her choice for the thousandth time, enough to make her wonder if bringing Lexa here to their first date - platonic or not, Clarke can’t tell, is afraid of asking - was a good idea after all. “It’s fine.”

Before Clarke can tell her to forget about going in altogether, that they can find somewhere else to eat, Lexa grits her teeth and walks inside, leaves Clarke to trail behind her, with the words about maybe going to her place so she could cook something for Lexa stuck in her throat. 

Suddenly, it feels wrong to be here.

The restaurant is a far cry from the one back in New York and Clarke realizes that just before the  _ maitre d _ asks for their name and directs them to a table. The whole dining area is cast in the soft light from the paper lanterns hanging low above the tables, linen tablecloths and linen napkins waiting for them as they take their places. It doesn’t have booths with soy sauce stained upholstery or tall windows letting in the light, but it still manages to give Clarke the same butterflies the other one did.

It feels too fancy. It’s definitely not somewhere they could go to wearing college sweatshirts and yoga pants, it’s somewhere Clarke should take Lexa to celebrate their tenth anniversary together, to share a meal and share an inside joke about Chinese restaurants and what they meant to their relationship. It feels like they’re skipping steps.

They place their orders after studying their menus for much longer than they needed to, with much more intensity than they should, as a way to fill the silence neither seemed ready to break. Clarke didn’t paid attention to the words she read, too focused on worrying about this dinner to be hungry at all, and ends up ordering the first thing she lays her eyes on - sweet and sour fish fillet with pineapple.

Lexa orders kung pao chicken and fried rice, with dumplings for the table.

_ Oh _ .

Clarke realizes a second too late why that order sounds familiar, why it makes something rattle inside her rib cage, but the waiter comes back with their wine and the moment is gone before Clarke can say anything.

What she’d say, she isn’t sure - but  _ something _ . 

Instead, she watches, with her heart shrinking down to the size of a raisin, as the waiter pours their wine. It’s an aromatic white that is supposed to bring out the spices in the food, their go-to for all the dishes in their menu, and the waiter tells them so. But Clarke is only half listening. For her, the best wine to go with Chinese food is beer, but that’s not that kind of restaurant, this is not that kind of date.

Taking a sip from her wine without bothering to look for the jasmine and honey aroma that the waiter had urged them to, Clarke turns to Lexa and takes her in without any distractions for the first time since they left her home. She’s about to dive right back into casual conversation, maybe ask about her day before working up to heavier topics, when Lexa meets her eyes, setting down her own wine as she studies her.

“How did you convince Anya to give you my home address?” Lexa says in such a calculated tone Clarke knows she’s been meaning to ask her this ever since she knocked on her door a week ago.

It feels like a punch to the gut and it leaves Clarke gasping for air, struggling to find her answer.

“Um, Raven did, actually. I-” Clarke takes a moment to collect her thoughts. She wriggles her hands together, wrapping her fingers together before finding her words, “Anya mostly wanted to strangle me when I brought it up. Raven was the one to talk her into it.”

Lexa hums, tracing the rim of her glass with her fingertip. She looks at it for a moment, too intently for Clarke’s taste - long enough for Clarke to become  _ very _ aware of her breathing, ragged and shallow as it is. “Does Raven know the truth?” Lexa blinks and looks up at Clarke, “Any bit of it at all.”

Clarke shrinks under the scrutiny of those green eyes, cold enough to freeze the desert. Fighting the shiver that runs down her spine, Clarke swallows past the lump in her throat to answer, “If you didn’t tell her, then no.”

“It wasn’t my place,” Lexa says and Clarke reaches for her wine again, more to have something to do with her hands than to actually get drunk so fast she won’t even taste the food - she’s past dealing with her problems like that. “But being her friend and not telling her something as big as  _ that _ ?” Lexa tilts her head and quirks her eyebrow up, “That’s low, even for you.”

The way she says it -  _ even for you _ \- tells Clarke more than she needs to know about how high is the regard Lexa holds her in.

“I know. I-” Clarke takes a deep breath, setting down her wine before taking a sip, not trusting herself to hold it without shattering the glass. “I’m scared.” The words leave her lips before she can think them through, breathing them out as she looks at Lexa, searching for some kind of comfort in her. She finds none. “I haven’t had many friends over these years, I don’t want to lose her. I know the longer I wait, the worse it’ll be, but… I need to find the courage.”

Lexa nods, once, like she understands - and maybe she does, maybe she’s the only one who does. “Maybe when you do find the courage, it’ll be too late.”

Something in the way she says it, makes Clarke wonder if she isn’t already too late. Something in the way Lexa’s eyes flicker under the warm light from the paper lanterns, makes regret pool deep in Clarke’s stomach, corroding her insides, and she’s helpless against it. Maybe she should have come earlier, maybe six years is too long, maybe she lost her chance.

“Are we still talking about Raven?” Clarke asks, because she has to know.

It’s probably a trick of the light, but Clarke can swear that Lexa grows softer as she sags against her chair, dragging her gaze from Clarke’s eyes to her mouth and back to her eyes, “Who else?”

The waiter brings their food to the table before Clarke has a chance to process what Lexa just said, before she thinks of something to say. It might be nothing, she might have been talking about Raven and what a surprise she’ll have when she finds out what a great friend she has in Clarke - but it might be  _ something _ , a subtle warning for Clarke to back off, a message for her not to give up quite yet.

Clarke stores it in the back of her mind, both Lexa’s words and the look in her eyes. She’ll save the overthinking for tomorrow, since she did already clear her schedule and has nothing else planned. 

For now, she dives in.

It’s not like she’s a huge fan of fish and mixing it with pineapple hardly helps, but she stares at it, picks apart a few pieces, takes a bite of it. It’s better than watching the dumplings piled up in between them, untouched, reminding her of times she can’t bring back. It’s better than seeing Lexa’s throat bobbing up and down, like the mere sight of her chicken makes her nauseous.

Maybe this has been a mistake. But Clarke bites a bell pepper and takes a sip from her wine, determined to make the most of this dinner. Her stomach drops when she clears her throat and Lexa looks up at her, but she pushes forward - if Lexa won’t talk, she might as well.

Between a bite and another, Clarke tells Lexa about her life in these last six years.

She talks about going back to school for her masters in education and how working with little kids for her internship opened her eyes and completely changed her view of them - “ _ they’re just tiny but they have so much to teach us _ ”. She rambles about sleepless nights that she spent working on school projects or painting for herself, for the odd commission she had, for the simple joy of working on her craft. She mentions the showings she did back in New York and how she came to have her own gallery in Toronto, talks about her work as a high school art teacher, about the view from her new apartment, about going to the park on Sunday afternoons, about the goddamn weather again.

Quirked eyebrows and a uninterested hum is all the answer she gets.

Filling the silence used to come easy for them, now it’s a struggle to find anything to talk about. Nothing sticks for more than a few moments, nothing turns into a two way conversation, nothing even reminds the long conversations they used to have.

There’s lull in the conversation, which really means Clarke stopped babbling for a moment. She plays with her food, using the chopsticks to separate the fish fillets from the pineapple from the bell peppers, and then to separate those by colors. Lexa has barely touched her own food but it’s clear to Clarke by now that neither of them is comfortable enough with this dinner to actually eat.

Clarke swallows past the lump in her throat, trying to push it down to the abyss that her stomach has turned into, and fully embraces the awkwardness of this date, accepts that it’s nothing but yet another failure she’ll have to live with.

But before Clarke calls it a night and promises never to call Lexa again, she pushes herself to ask one more question, more hoping than expecting Lexa answer it, “I know you don’t want to talk about Aden-”

“I don’t,” her answer is clipped and dry. Lexa settles down her chopsticks the same way Clarke does - there’s no need to pretend they’ll eat anything and the dumplings stay in the same pile they were brought to the table.

Clarke won’t push that particular subject - Lexa doesn’t want her son near Clarke, doesn’t want her to know anything about him, that’s fair. Clarke respects that enough to not even ask Raven about him, even if she spends a good portion of her time taking a thousand pictures of her godson. 

“I know, I just-” Clarke sighs and pushes her hair behind her ear, settles her palms on her thighs. They’re sweaty.  “About his other mom?”

Dropping her napkin on the table, as if she wants to make her exit as fast as possible, Lexa purses her lips, “What about her?”

“Is she your wife?” Clarke asks in a tiny voice, the lump in her throat growing too big for her voice to work properly. She wants to know as much as she’s dreading the answer, “A girlfriend?”

Lexa studies her for a moment, narrowing her eyes in a way that makes Clarke squirm. She thinks she sees the corner of her lips tilting up for the briefest of moments, as if the question amused her, but it’s gone before she can make sure of it. “Is this your subtle way to ask if I’m taken?” 

“Maybe,” she tries to sound coy, less eager than she feels. If the way Lexa rolls her eyes, enough for Clarke to see all the white in them, is anything to go by, she doesn’t do a great job at disguising her true feelings.

But for the first time in the entire night, Lexa seems willing to talk to her.

“Well, she’s not my wife or my girlfriend,” Lexa starts, and Clarke’s heart picks up its pace almost immediately, threatening to beat its way out of her chest. “Aden does have his biological mother in his life, but we call her auntie Luna.”

It takes Clarke a moment to digest the words, to make sense of them when her heart is beating in her ears and her throat is completely dry, “You-” Clarke frowns, watches as Lexa takes a sip from her wine and avoids her gaze, “Wait,  _ what _ ?”

Lexa sighs, the ghost of a smile definitely quirking her lips up. Even in her confusion, Clarke can see that talking about Aden lights Lexa up, takes her back to first steps and nights playing with a smiling toddler who just wouldn’t go back to sleep. She relents and explains, “It was an open adoption and she’s still in his life. I’ve raised Aden alone since he was seventeen days, but Luna know him, I take him to see her at the park every now and then. But he’s still too young to understand it all, so for now, all that he knows is that she’s a friend of mine.”

Clarke smiles at that - not only because Lexa  _ isn’t _ taken, but at how pure her love for him is. Motherhood is something Clarke has given up on a long time ago, but even she knows there’s nothing Lexa wouldn’t do for her son and that his happiness is the first thing in her mind at all times.

“Why would you say it like that, then?” The words leave her lips before she thinks them through, before she realizes that Lexa has shared more than Clarke deserves to hear and she’s promptly ruining it. Lexa frowns and Clarke wants to shove the words right back into her throat, but she explains, “Why would you make me believe you had someone?”

Lexa hardens. And Clarke has no one else to blame but herself as she watches the walls building themselves back up around Lexa. “You do not get to be angry at me for that,” Lexa says in a low voice, shaky with all the emotion she couldn’t hide fast enough, “Did it hurt you? Good. It’s not a fraction of what you did to me.”

Clarke has no argument against that. It stung, but she couldn’t have blamed Lexa for moving on. Lexa, on the other hand, had a mile long list of things to blame Clarke for. “Okay, I deserve that,” Clarke says because she knows that much. She braces herself for a moment, knowing she needs to be honest with Lexa, knowing it probably won’t end well, “I guess I didn’t want to believe I had lost my chance with you.”

“Jesus, Clarke,” Lexa all but cries out, her breath coming out in a shaky exhale. She closes her eyes for a moment, balling her fists at the edge of the table before staring at Clarke with an intensity she wasn’t ready for, “Do you hear yourself? Do you realize how selfish you’ve been since the moment you knocked on my door?”

Clarke is at a loss of words, opening and closing her mouth like a damn fish out of water, “What?”

Straightening up and uncurling her fists, Lexa frowns at how naive Clarke sounds, “You gave me  _ no _ warning, Clarke. You just burst into my life like the last six years had been nothing, like you hadn’t disappeared the moment things got hard.” She works her jaw, trying to keep her tears at bay as she lets go of everything she’s been holding on since Clarke walked out. “I went to your gallery hoping for some closure, maybe even for an apology, but you know what I saw? I saw neon lights saying ‘ _ breaking up with you was the best thing that’s ever happened to me, look how happy I am _ ’ and you keep selling that same image.”

A tear rolls down her cheek and Clarke follows it with her eyes, watches it drop from her jaw to her lap.

She never meant for this to happen.

When she asked Lexa to come to her gallery, the  _ last _ thing she wanted was for her to think Clarke wanted to rub on her face how much better she was doing without her. Because that couldn’t be further from the truth.

She had walked out because she didn’t deserve someone like Lexa. She had walked out and promised herself she’d work until she was good enough, until they didn’t have to come up with lies upon lies to everyone they knew, until she felt like she was worthy of  the life she got a taste of while she was with Lexa. 

Lexa had been the catalyst Clarke needed for her to change her life and to become who she always wanted to be -  _ that _ had been the reason Clarke showed up at her doorstep, why she wanted Lexa to see her work at all

All she managed was to make things worse.

“You left,” Lexa says, her voice shaking, her eyes brimming with tears. “You broke my heart and you  _ left, _ ” She blinks through the mist, her tears roll down her cheeks and she wipes them away with the back of her hand before Clarke can reach out to do the same - which is good, it’s not her place to dry Lexa’s tears anymore, not when she’s the one making them fall, “Then you send me a goddamn note saying it was all real. If it was so fucking real, then why didn’t you stay?”

Clarke opens her mouth to try and explain herself, to put into words everything she’s been putting into canvases, to make Lexa understand her side of things. But before Clarke can get over herself and find the words that will make her stay, Lexa is already halfway to the door.

She stares at the untouched dumplings that seem to mock her until the waiter comes over to ask if everything is okay with pity in his eyes and a careful hand on her shoulder. Clarke nods and forces a smile before she realizes her cheeks are wet with tears she doesn’t remember shedding and her neck itches with the ones that trickled towards it. 

It takes her everything she has to ask for the check and Clarke doesn’t have it in her to feel embarrassed for crying so openly in a restaurant meant to be the spot for a good meal and happy memories. When the waiter comes back empty handed and tells her that her  _ date  _ \- the word hurts and even the waiter seems to notice that - had paid for dinner already, Clarke forgets to thank him.

Of course Lexa took care of it.

Then there’s nothing left for her to do but drag herself away from the table and put a foot in front of the other until she makes it to her car, puts it on drive and prays that she remember the way home.

It doesn’t feel like she’s going home.

It feels like she just lost it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter might as well have been called "in which Lexa is an ice cube and Clarke drowns in guilt" and boy, was this a rough one to write. I honestly cannot wait for the ones where they're so sweet you all leave with ten cavities to be filled. It'll get worse before it gets better, and it'll get a _lot_ worse but it will get better soon enough.


	3. let a little light in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for blood and mentions of assault.

When she started thinking about teaching high schoolers, Clarke knew what she’d be signing up for - splitting up fights, putting up with name calling and the occasional flirting, having a harder time making them pay attention than she would if she were herding cows, chaperoning horny teenagers in school dances to make sure they left enough room in between them so no one would be at risk of getting pregnant. 

Those things were expected. She went to work everyday knowing any of that could happen at any time when dealing with teenagers.

But getting hit in the face and almost knocked out cold by a sixteen year old with just a tad more muscles than a house cat?

She  _ really _ didn’t see that coming.

In the defense of said sixteen year old, he had looked absolutely terrified when Clarke found her bearings after being hit square on the face by a loose soccer ball and could finally stand again. It probably had less to do with all the blood trickling down her face and more to do with his fear of getting detention -  _ or worse _ , expelled from the team - for accidentally hitting a teacher, but Clarke chose to believe he felt sorry for her.

Now she can add “falling through the bleachers is and splitting your arm and forehead open” to reasons why being a teacher is actually dangerous.

“I’m gonna be sick,” Raven whines through her dry heaving, her eyes filling with tears as she swerves the car into a side street and speeds past any stop sign, “I’m literally going to throw up.”

Clarke looks at Raven, praying to any god listening that she  _ doesn’t _ throw up, not before they get to her place - there’s room for only one sick person in this car and Clarke called dibs on that. Raven had gone to the soccer game with Clarke after being bribed with homemade chocolate cake and promises of going out on a date with the engineer dude she had talked about over and over again. But ten minutes into the game, Raven was cheering for their team and calling the opposite team names that made the moms in front of them glare at her until she apologized.

They hadn’t even gotten to half time yet when Clarke went down and had to crawl her way out of the space in between the seats without much help from Raven, who was already clutching her stomach and turning away once she saw Clarke’s bloody arm peeking through. 

For someone who opens beer bottles with her teeth just to show how tough she is, Raven can get really queasy really fast when she’s near blood.

“It’s not like I could drive with blood dripping down my face, but I could have waited for the nurse,” Clarke whines back, because hey, she’s the injured one, she has the  _ right  _ to whine. But the nurse was too busy applying deep heat rub to a crying teenager’s calf and Clarke knew she’d only scare more kids if she stayed. “Or asked Wells to drive me home. Where I could clean my cuts without worrying about also having to clean your vomit from my car.”

Raven scoffs at her audacity, “You don’t even have Band-aids at home. Sue me for being a good friend.” She rolls her eyes dramatically as she comes to a stop at a red light and Clarke smiles at her. Raven really is a good friend - pins and needles poke at her heart at the thought of everything they have in between them, everything that Raven doesn’t know, but she quickly pushes it aside. “By the way, your car is a mess. What’s wrong with your stick shift?”

Stepping on the gas as soon as the light turns green, Raven makes the car jolt back with enough force that Clarke clings to the ceiling handle for dear life. She’s torn between laughing and yelling at Raven when she scowls at the stick shift as if it’s a personal attack that it won’t get to the right gear, “There’s nothing wrong with it, you’re the one who can’t drive and keep putting it on reverse instead of first.”

Raven doesn’t bother with an answer, focusing on getting the stick shift into the right place and speeding down the street, “Pray for Anya to be home because I’m not getting near all that blood.” Clarke watches her dry heaving again, wishing the temperature wasn’t so far down into the negatives - if she could roll down the windows without risking frostbite, maybe the fresh air would help Raven keep it together, “Oh god, the  _ smell _ .”

Clarke feels for Raven, but that’s nearing a Oscar worthy performance now. She had already managed to clean the cut in her forehead before they even got into the car and her nose had stopped bleeding completely. “Shut up, it’s stopping now. Just point me to the first aid kit and I’ll be fine.” She peeks under the balled up tee she has pressed to her forearm, but the car tilts to the side and jolts violently back in place as Raven speeds again, “And try not to kill us before we make it there, did you  _ not _ see that curb?”

It’s hard to say who’s more relieved to see the house come into view - Raven has her lips pressed into a thin line, like she’s half a minute away from actually throwing up, and Clarke has half forgotten about her throbbing head in worry for her friend. 

Raven pulls up into the driveway, almost crashing into a car parked a few feet behind, leaving the car skewed in the hurry to get as far away from Clarke as possible. She runs ahead because she’s too queasy and too eager to breathe in the crisp winter air that might burn her lungs, but doesn’t have the same iron tang to it as the car.Keeping some distance between them, she follows Raven towards the door, who fumbles with her keys for a moment too long, enough for Clarke to grow more worried about her friend. She lets Raven walk in first as she busies herself with looking under the tee she has pressed on her forearm. It needs some cleaning - there’s  _ grass _ in it and the game was going on inside the gym - and dressing, but it has stopped bleeding already.

“Anya? Are you home?” Raven calls out at the top of her lungs as Clarke closes the door behind her, shrugging off the coat she had half wrapped around her. “Clarke is bleeding out and if you don’t fix her, she  _ will _ die.”

Before she thinks it through, Clarke wafts the blood stained shirt towards Raven, trying to get her to shut up but the only thing she manages is a more violent dry heaving that fills her eyes with tears again. “Raven, quit being dramatic,” Clarke glares at her, knowing Anya would have a fit if Clarke bled out in her foyer.

“Who’s dying?” Anya shouts from somewhere in the house, possibly the office if Anya being home on a Thursday when the sun is still out is anything to go by, “Someone better be dying for you to be yelling like this.”

They walk towards the living room after hanging their coats and Clarke is about to ask Raven where the nearest bathroom is and for her to stop making a big deal out of nothing, when she hears a  _ tap tap tap tap _ that hardly sounds like a grown woman walking towards them. Clarke looks past the living room just in time to see Aden running towards them holding a wooden car in each hand, his socked feet sliding against the hardwood floor as the comes to a stop.

Clarke stares at him, completely dumbfounded. Of course Lexa’s son would see her like this and be scarred for life. Because  _ of course _ .

It takes her a moment to realize that, if Aden is here, it’s more than a little likely that so is Lexa. Clarke finds herself clinging to the hope that maybe, just maybe, Lexa is away somewhere - maybe she’s still in court, maybe she had to take a day trip, maybe there’s a meeting she had to attend - and Anya was left in charge of babysitting her son. It’s a pipe dream, Clarke knows that as soon as she thinks it, but it could happen _ \-  _ if only the universe is on her side in this one and not out to make her life as miserable as possible.

Because she’s not ready to see Lexa yet, not after she made a fool of herself at their dinner. It’s been  _ weeks _ , and Clarke still cannot believe herself. How could she have been so daft, so clueless about how Lexa felt about her?

When Clarke got home after that dreadful date, eyes stinging with the salty tears that didn’t want to stop rolling down her cheeks, she had promised herself to leave Lexa alone. At least for now, at least until she found a way to shove all her feelings down her throat, at least until she could look at Lexa without seeing the idolized image Clarke concocted in these past years. Because that’s how it feels now - the Lexa that Clarke imagined running into all these years isn’t the same Lexa that walked out on her in the restaurant, isn’t the same Lexa that  _ she _ walked out on.

They were together for two weeks, and two weeks isn’t enough time to get to know someone.

It’s  _ just _ enough time to fall in love with someone, but people unveil themselves slowly and only once the high of meeting someone oh so dreamy fades. Their high never faded - they were raw and intense and wildly in love, but that was it.

And in six years, Clarke made up a whole person in her mind, someone who might have been Lexa at some point, but definitely isn’t all Lexa now.

Clarke needs time to adjust her sight so she can see Lexa as she is. And she can only assume Lexa needs some time away from her as well - to heal or to plan her murder, both are just as likely. They both need some time to figure out where to go from here, to breathe some fresh air after their head on collision, and a handful of weeks isn’t enough for that, and Clarke is really not ready to see Lexa now.

Especially when Clarke is bleeding in front of her son.

“Aunt Raven?” Aden asks without taking his eyes from the cut in Clarke’s forehead, all of his forty inches shaking as much as his voice, “Is she dying?”

“I think so, buddy,” Raven says through a gag and Clarke shoots daggers at her because she’s  _ not fucking helping _ . But Raven clutches her stomach and covers her mouth, pushing past Aden without even glancing back, “I’m gonna throw up.”

Clarke watches her go and lowers her gaze towards Aden, who’s still sizing her up as if waiting for her to drop dead, his little knuckles turning white with how hard he’s gripping his toys. Clarke crouches in front of him, keeping her distance so she doesn’t scare him even more, but looking him in the eye as she tries and comfort him. “I’m alright,” she says with a firm voice, even if the new position makes her realize she might have bruised a few ribs when she fell down, “I promise you I’m not dying.”

“It looks like you are,” he sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, his baby teeth denting into it as he frowns with all his mighty.

“It only looks bad, but it doesn’t even hurt,” Clarke lies through her teeth because she wouldn’t say no to some Advil and a pack of frozen peas to put on her head, but Aden has had enough worry for one day. 

She’s about to ask him if he knows where the bathroom is - really, all she wants it to get her cuts clean and stop making everyone look at her like she’s growing a second head - when Anya makes her way to her, her eyes bulging from her sockets. “What the hell happened, Clarke?” Anya asks, sounding more annoyed than worried, as Aden runs towards her and wraps his arms around her thigh.

Clarke hoists herself up, careful to do it slowly enough that she doesn’t lose her balance - she did bang her head really hard on her way down and she could easily stumble and plant her ass on the floor. “We were at the game and this damn-” Clarke cuts herself mid sentence, glancing at Aden before rephrasing, “-darn kid kicked the ball to my face and-” she looks past Anya’s shoulder to see Lexa walking towards them and the words get stuck in her throat, “I- And I-”

Oh, she isn’t ready to see Lexa.

And  _ dammit _ , she looks good. 

Beside Clarke’s ripped jeans and blood stained jersey, anyone would look put together. But Lexa wraps her cashmere cardigan around her waist, looking so  _ soft _ with her hair tossed over her shoulder, weaved into a loose braid, that Clarke is left breathless. 

She might have made up a whole different person in her mind over these past years, might have changed details and forgotten what Lexa tastes like when the morning sun has warmed up her skin. But the one thing Clarke knows for sure is that Lexa will always look fucking ethereal, even when she’s not trying to.

Anya looks over her shoulder as she hears footsteps approaching, raising her eyebrows in understanding, her lips tilted up in teasing, “Okay, you either lost a lot of blood or seeing Lexa gave you a stroke.”

When he hears his mom’s name, Aden perks up and looks behind him, unwraps his arms from around Anya’s leg, reaching them out to Lexa as he waits for her to come within hugging distance. He clings to her cardigan, burying his face on her waist, “Mommy, is she gonna die?”

Oh, so Clarke’s hopes of Lexa never finding out she introduced Aden to the fatality of death are out the window before she gets one word in. Amazing.

Lexa sets one hand on Aden’s, squeezing it gently as she leans down to press a kiss to his forehead, “No, baby, she’ll be just fine.” She runs her fingers through his hair, half ruffling it, half combing it to the side, and looks up at Clarke. Lexa sizes her up for a moment that seems to drag on for an eternity before she finally speaks, her voice even and distant, “Hello, Clarke.”

Before Clarke can find her voice and force herself to greet Lexa as well - or really, do  _ anything _ other than stand there, staring at Lexa like she’s seeing the sun for the first time in years -, Anya turns on her heels. “Lex, do you mind showing her where the first aid kit is?” Anya says in a casual tone, like there’s no history in between them and Anya is trying her hardest to make two of her guests at a dinner party get along. “Aden and I will go check on aunt Raven. Right, bud?”

Anya reaches out her hand and Aden takes it without thinking twice, clearly eager to get as far as possible from the lady with blood trickling down the side of her face, even if it means leaving his mom to fend for herself. Both Lexa and Clarke watch them go away with promises of cookies after making sure Raven is alright - because  _ auntie Raven will need the cookies and you’re all shaken up, aren’t you? _

Clarke busies herself with looking at the cut on her arm, pretending to assess the damage for the first time and knowing it’s hardly convincing. Lexa crosses her arms around her chest, as if she’s putting a barrier between Clarke and her heart, and steps closer to her, “You really do look like you’re in bad shape.”

“It’s really not as bad as it looks,” Clarke says, because it’s not but trying to clean up blood with paper towels made it even more messy, so it looks more like she’s been in a car accident than like she  _ fell _ .

Lexa comes within two feet of her, leaning in to take a look at her injuries. She’s close enough that Clarke can see faint freckles peppering her cheeks, a memory of the summer glow lingering on her skin. She can see the traces of gold in her green eyes as they trace the cut on her forehead and fall to her busted lips, avoiding her own eyes completely. Clarke can see the way her lips part ever so slightly as she focus, can smell her shampoo, sweet and still familiar, can feel the warmth coming from her, the warmth Clarke misses so much it makes her stomach drop a few inches.

She’s close enough for Clarke to be sure her knees will buckle from under her before she remembers how to breathe.

As quickly as she stepped into her personal space, Lexa steps out of it. She squares her shoulders and starts walking towards the stairs, “I think the first aid kit in the upstairs bathroom will do. Come on.” 

It takes Clarke a moment to pull herself out of her daze and snap out of it, make herself follow Lexa up the stairs. She has to remind herself that Lexa isn’t hers anymore and that she doesn’t have the right to crave her warmth, to want her touch, to feel the butterflies coming to life in her stomach. 

“I-” Clarke starts as she hurries to catch up with Lexa, skipping a few steps as she climbs the stairs. Her breath catches in her throat and Clarke can’t really tell if it’s because she’s incredibly out of shape or if being this close to Lexa short-circuited her lungs as well, “I didn’t mean to run into you,” Clarke finally manages to get out when they get to the upper floor. Her first words to Lexa after a month and she can almost  _ see _ Lexa wincing at them. “I mean, if I knew you were here, I wouldn’t have-”

Before she can either find a better way to put it or dig herself into a hole, Lexa cuts her, “It’s fine. You’re friends with Raven, I can’t keep you from coming to her home simply so we won’t run into each other.” Lexa says without sparing her as much as glance, “It’ll happen occasionally and we’ll have to deal with it.”

Clarke nods before she realizes Lexa won’t see her, but doesn’t say anything. It’s clear that Lexa doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want her around. She can see it in her folded arms, clutching her cardigan in her fists, in her shoulders drawn up and forward, in the tightness of her neck and stiffness of her stride. Lexa doesn’t want her here and Clarke can’t help the bitter fire that licks her chest, its heat closing her throat, the fumes clouding her mind.

She wants to go  _ back _ .

They walk the rest of the way to the bathroom in silence, third door to their left, and Clarke waits outside as Lexa rummages through the cabinets, moving things around until she finds the first aid kit. She picks it up and opens it on the counter, pulling out three different sizes of bandages strips, roller gauze, antiseptic solution  _ and _ cream, antibiotic ointment, cotton balls and a few more things Clarke didn’t even know she’d need.

Clarke is torn between thanking Lexa for pulling it all out and telling her all she really needs is some soap and Band-aids, but before she can open her mouth, Lexa looks at her standing dumbly in the hallway. And that look alone is enough to render Clarke speechless.

Her eyebrows shoot up, like Lexa can’t believe Clarke hasn’t understood what she’s supposed to do yet, and she tilts her head to the side, gesturing her inside, “Sit.”

“I can do it,” Clarke says as she walks inside, still clutching the shirt to her arm. She doesn’t need Lexa to do her any favors, not if she’s going to keep looking at her like she’d rather be anywhere else - plucking off her own fingernails, maybe - but Lexa gives her a dirty look when she tries to reach the soap with her injured arm.

“I know you can. Sit down,” her tone is firm and has a certain  _ motherly _ quality to it, something that is bound to make Aden behave and doesn’t give Clarke much room to argue.

Instead of fighting what seems to be a losing battle, Clarke drags her feet towards the toilet and lowers the lid before sitting down on it. She peels the shirt from her arm, biting her lip when she has to pluck a bit of it free after it got stuck to the dried blood, and tosses it on the floor - Anya can burn it for all she cares, there’s no way she’s dealing with all those blood stains when she already has more than a few splotches on her favorite jeans.

Lexa seems to be taking her sweet time washing her hands and prepping whatever it is that she plan on using first. Clarke watches her, half because she has nothing else to do and is starting to get bored, half because this is the first moment she’s allowed to. She watches the warm water falling like silk around her long fingers, the way her eyebrows frown as she wets a few cotton balls, how her lips pout ever so slightly with how much she’s focusing on her actions.

By the time Lexa turns to her, Clarke can feel the tendrils of nostalgia and regret curling around her heart.

“What happened?” Lexa asks in a whisper, softer than she’s ever spoken to Clarke, so gently she almost thinks she imagined it. But Lexa waits for an answer as she moves to clean the cut on Clarke’s forehead, running the cotton ball lightly on the skin around it to wipe off the blood.

The way Lexa touches her jaw, barely grazing her fingers on her skin as she gets another cotton ball to squeeze some warm water on her cut, is enough for Clarke to completely forget how to put words together. Because Lexa is touching her so delicately she can’t breathe, can’t feel anything but the spot where their skin meet, her whole body tingling with want.

When Lexa turns back to the sink to squeeze some antiseptic solution on a fresh cotton ball, Clarke blinks, forces herself to sputter words out, “Uh, we were at the school for a soccer game and one of the kids kicked the ball too hard in my direction, it hit my face, I fell down through the bleachers and cut my arm.”

“ _ Through  _ the bleachers?” Lexa humors her, and Clarke wonders if she can still go into shock - because that would be a good explanation as to why the hell her heart is pounding against her ribcage and her blood feels like ice within her veins.

“Oh, yeah, I went all the way down, slid right in between. That’s where I cut my arm,” Clarke hisses as Lexa presses the cotton ball on her forehead again. It’s more cold than it stings, but she still has to fight the urge to squirm away. “I- uh, I said a handful of not so polite expletives but the pain was almost worth watching all the moms gasp in horror.”

The corner of Lexa’s lips tilt up in a small smile - a delicate, barely there thing that is enough to make Clarke’s throat go dry - and she nods, once. “Okay. Good. That’s good,” Clarke is about to ask how  _ exactly _ that’s a good thing when she sees the relieved sigh Lexa lets out. “When I saw you, I thought-” Lexa pauses, picks up another cotton ball, rolls it on her fingers as if she’s unsure of herself before finishing her sentence, “Well, I thought maybe you were at a bar, and had ran into an ex client and they had tried something.”

“ _ Oh. _ ” 

It’s all Clarke can get out.

Because Lexa may not think too high of Clarke if she really thought she’d be at a bar at five in the afternoon on a Thursday, but she had worried about her.

Somewhere underneath all those layers of bitterness and hurt, Lexa still cares enough about Clarke to  _ worry _ about her well being, about whatever might threaten it. She still cares enough to be relieved when finding out her injuries are the work of a clumsy sixteen year old and her own clumsiness, not someone from her past who might want to harm her.

Clarke clears her throat when Lexa reaches out for her arm, sizing up how bad that cut was, before running the cotton ball on her skin, wiping off the dried blood. “No, that hasn’t happened in a while,” Clarke whispers, half hoping Lexa won’t hear her. She keeps her gaze on her arm - now that the blood is mostly gone, Clarke sees the cut where the bleachers’ jagged edges ripped the skin open, but it’s nothing more serious than that. “Never since I’ve moved here.”

“But it  _ has  _ happened?” Lexa asks, her eyebrows knitted together, the cotton ball with antiseptic solution suspended in the air, her green eyes sparkling with worry Clarke never thought she’d see again.

It’s a soft, gentle moment that leaves Clarke afraid to breathe and break it without meaning to.

“Yeah, well,” Clarke shrugs, her voice catching on her throat, but it has less to do with painful memories and more with how close Lexa is listening, “Men tend to get a little too angry when they think they’re owed sex.” Clarke holds her breath when she closes her hand on top of Lexa’s, holding it on her arm, barely squeezing it, trying to comfort her with a smile, “But it’s fine now.”

Lexa looks into her eyes for longer than Clarke is ready for, longer than she can handle. She glances to her busted lips and back to her eyes, as if she’s looking for the lie in them, before nodding. Lexa focuses on her arm again, applying the antiseptic solution carefully before reaching for the antibiotic ointment and squeezing some of it on another cotton ball.

Clarke watches the way Lexa’s hands work, fast and softly, making sure not to put any pressure where she doesn’t have to. It’s clear that she’s done this before - maybe with someone who isn’t this willing to stay quiet, someone who wants the booboo to go away and his mommy is making it hurt more with the stinky liquids. Because kids get hurt and when they do, no one else will make it better but their moms.

Letting her mind wander, Clarke imagines Aden learning how to ride a bike and tumbling down the street the moment Lexa lets go - or maybe Raven, maybe Lincoln even, because Lexa doesn’t seem like the kind of parent to do what. She can almost see Aden running towards his mommy, skinned knees and bruised elbows, wailing at the top of his lungs because this is literally the worst thing that has ever happened to him in all of his four years of life. Maybe Aden has sat on this same spot, his legs shaking when the soapy water made his cuts hurt more, and Lexa took turns cleaning his knees and drying his tears.

Lexa, with her gentle dabs and delicate touches, makes Clarke bite her bottom lip to keep herself together, to keep her tears from rolling down her cheeks as they pool in her eyes. 

Because no one has cared after her this gently.

No one even gave a shit as to why she had to go to the emergency room with a bruised jaw bones and busted lips.

Clarke sinks her teeth deeper into her lip as she remembers running into ex-clients in the street on her way from class or to her work as a kindergarten teacher - New York can be extremely small when you don’t want to meet certain people.

Most of the time, Clarke would hold her breath as they crossed paths, but they wouldn’t recognize her. In her paint stained shirts and hair in a messy bun on top of her head, Clarke was a far cry from the part she played when she was working as an escort, dress hugging all her curves and heavy makeup doubling as a mask. When they did recognize her, they’d either look the other way or greet her with a nod of their head, maybe stop for polite conversation if they had been one of her regular clients -  _ oh, you’re not working anymore? such a shame, you’re really good at it. best of luck with whatever you’re up too, see you around _ . But sometimes they’d get annoyed that she wouldn’t sleep with them for free now, sometimes they’d grab her arm and demand something they weren’t allowed to anymore, sometimes they’d be aggressive and swing a punch at her when she said no.

It had happened once. But once had been more than enough to leave Clarke looking over her shoulder on her way home, taking the train with a pepper spray in her bag, making a bee-line when she saw someone even vaguely familiar.

It had been a turning point for her - after that incident, she took up a job as a barista at a Starbucks and started taking commissions online to pay for therapy. Clarke had known for a long time that she needed someone to talk about everything that she had shoved deep down, from her dad’s death to dissociating every time someone touched her, and that punch had been what made her seek help to deal with everything.

In the end, it had all been for the best - she is definitely more mature now than she was four years ago, she can work on her own feelings without reaching for one of her  _ many _ unhealthy coping mechanisms. But it’s a process she’s still learning from, it’s a new scar to add to her collection.

Clarke had forgotten what it feels like to have someone care enough to make sure she’s not hurting. Even if Lexa would want nothing more than for her to be swallowed by the earth never to be seen again, she still cares.

“I’m sorry.”

The words tumble out of her lips in a whisper and Lexa pauses her movements for a moment, the only indication she heard Clarke at all, before reaching back to grab a couple butterfly bandages, “I told you, it’s fine. It’s not your fault I was here.”

“No, I don’t mean just today,” Clarke says, her voice only barely above a whisper, as if she’s scared that talking any louder would make Lexa run away. She searches Lexa’s face for any sign of anger or annoyance and finds nothing but a blank expression as she puts the bandages in place, securing her cut closed. Clarke takes a deep breath in, “I’m sorry for walking into your life again out of nowhere and acting like I did. I guess I didn’t see how self centered it all was, showing up at your doorstep, asking you out, wanting to pick up where we left.”

Lexa closes her eyes for a moment, her jaw tightening, her throat bobbing up and down. She shakes her head as she opens her eyes again, unshed tears bringing the green in it to life, “Clarke, you don’t have to-”

“Please. Let me finish before I lose the courage.”

The need to get it all out threatens to burst through the seams and Clarke pleads with no inhibitions. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever have another chance like this - when she’s feeling brave enough to talk and Lexa is willing to listen.

It takes a moment for Lexa to look away, desperately blinking her tears away as she grabs extra bandages to cover the cut on Clarke’s arm, even if there’s no need to. Clarke watches Lexa swallowing dry again as she works on the bandage, cutting them to the proper size before nodding once.

“I-” It’s Clarke’s turn to swallow past the lump in her throat, to will her voice to come out, “I never meant to hurt you, coming up here and reaching out for you. I never meant to make it look like I was better without you,” she gets it all out in one breath, and the weight she’s been carrying on her shoulders seems to lighten just a tad. Lexa wraps the bandage around her arm, and Clarke notices that her hands are shaking as much as her own voice. “What pushed me to quit my job and find something that would push my art career forward was all the things you said in the time we spent together,” the memory stings more than Clarke thought it would and knowing she’ll never have Lexa’s arms wrapped around her like that again makes it just that much words. “Leaving you had nothing to do with how well I did. Luck and the way you believed in me do.”

Clarke bites her tongue when Lexa drops her arm carefully back on her lap and turns her back to her. Had it been too much, too soon, too fast? Clarke lets out a shaky breath, sure that Lexa will march down the stairs, hoist Aden up on her arms and flee the house before she can get another word in.

But Lexa turns back to her with a wet cotton ball in one hand and holds Clarke’s chin with the other. She had half forgotten about her busted lip and it stings when the warm water drips around the cut, but Clarke forces herself to stay still, her mouth half open for Lexa to have a better view, her chin resting on Lexa’s palm.

It burns her skin, that simple, feather like touch, and Clarke wants to drown in it.

She watches the way Lexa’s eyebrows knit together in concentration as she dabs the cut clean, tries to find anything in her green eyes that could point Clarke in the right direction on how to handle this, how to make it alright - but her eyes don’t say a thing and neither does Lexa.

Lexa finishes cleaning her lip after a moment more, but her palm is still cradling Clarke’s chin when she begins to talk again, “But now I understand that I did it all to myself, this showing up and showing off. I wasn’t thinking about how you’d take it, how it’d seem to you. I took too long. I was scared for too long and now it’s too late, I know that. You have all the right to hate me for everything.” Clarke feels her lip trembling with the promise of tears she can’t afford to shed, and Lexa turns away again. “And I’m sorry, Lexa. I’m sorry for walking away, for hurting you, for giving up on us.”

Clarke sucks in a breath, pressing her mouth in a thin line despite the sharp pain it sends down her bottom lip that seems to irradiate down her neck. She said it, it’s all out in the open now - but Lexa still has her back to her.

Relief washes over Clarke when she sees Lexa turning to her, squirting a bit of antiseptic cream on her index finger - she isn’t smiling, but she isn’t frowning either, isn’t ready to lash out. 

A treacherous tear gets free and rolls down her cheek before Clarke can force it back inside her tear ducts and Lexa casually wipes it away with her thumb. Clarke knows that it’s probably a reflex - Lexa has certainly dried her fair share of tears with her son - and it means nothing, but she still has to bite the inside of her cheeks to keep herself from opening the floodgates. 

There’s a time and a place for these bitter tears and it’s neither here nor now. 

Lexa applies the antiseptic cream on Clarke’s lip with gentle dabs, spreading it evenly over the cut before she croaks out the words that seem to have been stuck in her throat, “I could never hate you, Clarke. And believe me, I tried.” She pauses and Clarke can almost see the nights Lexa spent lying awake, forcing herself to loathe Clarke for everything she made her go through. “Maybe we wouldn’t be here if you had stayed. Maybe you wouldn’t have your own gallery now, I might have never gotten Aden.” Lexa looks up from her lip, meets her eyes and Clarke can’t tell if she accepts her apologies or promises herself to try harder, “Maybe this is how it was supposed to be.”

With a short nod, Lexa turns back to the counter and starts putting everything away. Clarke sees that she takes meticulous care to stack everything in its proper place, taking way longer than it should, and she wonders if Lexa is waiting for her to leave her alone, to get downstairs and bid everyone goodbye and  _ leave _ before she’s finished with the first aid kit.

Clarke does get up and walks towards the door, but she leans against it instead of leaving, crossing her arms as she watches Lexa putting the kit in its place. She looks at her tenderly, wondering what it’d take for them to still be here, in this exact place, if she hadn’t left. “Do you think we would have made it?” Clarke asks, because she needs to know.

Lexa freezes for a second too long as she closes the cupboard door and Clarke swears she sees tears threatening to well up in her eyes when she looks up, “Yeah, we would have.”

It feels like the world stops spinning. 

Because as much as Clarke had thought about them together, living the life they had once dared to dream, she had never felt with this much certainty that they could have made it - together and with a lot less pain. 

In these last years and more often than not, Clarke had found herself imagining what their life would be like if she had stayed - a paint stained Clarke kissing a mildly disgusted Lexa when they moved together and decided to go for a new color on the walls, Spring afternoons spent lazily reading on the part and enjoying each other company, teaching Lexa how to cook, getting down on one knee and proposing, walking down the aisle together knowing they’d be together forever.

But in her senseless daydreaming, she always skipped the part where they both lived in different countries, Lexa had sixteen-hour days regularly and Clarke was still working as an escort. Because it was easier to imagine them as a far fetched thing, as a dream that could’ve never happened, than a real possibility that Clarke threw out the window.

And now, it feels like Lexa thought it all through. She sounds sure of every bump in the road they’d have to deal with, every fight they’d have, every understanding they would make and every one of those they’d break, every ten steps backwards they’d take for every three forward. And more than that, she sounds  _ sure _ that they would have come out of every fight stronger than they were.

Her stomach lurches forward when Lexa passes in front of her to get to the hallway, close enough that Clarke can feel the warmth that comes in waves from her, can almost smell her perfume. It hits her that she doesn’t remember what Lexa used to smell like, all those years ago, that she can’t tell if she changed her go to perfume or lotion - they weren’t together long enough for Clarke to commit it to memory and it pulls at her heart in an uncomfortable reminder that she could have had it all.

Clarke tries her mightiest not to let the whole world be sucked by the black hole coming to life in her chest as she walks towards the stairs with Lexa. “I’ll give you space, if that’s what you want,” she says the words because she knows she  _ has _ to, because this is the right thing to do, “I’ll call ahead to see if you’re here or ask Raven to hang out at my place instead. I’ll stay away.” If her voice breaks, Lexa doesn’t mention anything.

She watches Lexa considering her offer as they make their way downstairs, almost praying for her to say that no, she doesn’t need space, she doesn’t want Clarke to avoid her at all costs. But by the time they’re halfway down the stairs, Lexa nods and Clarke’s heart tumble all the way to the living room. “It’ll hurt less,” Lexa says in a whisper, “So yes, I’d like that. At least for now.”

Clarke swallows past the lump in her throat and nods, turning her gaze to the steps ahead of her, willing herself not to stumble and fall.

As much as she wants to be a part of Lexa’s life once more, she’ll keep her distance. 

Because  _ it’ll hurt less _ .

Lexa words cut deep, slicing through her flesh and bones like they’re made of butter. 

She hadn’t realized it. Once again, Clarke had been to caught up on her own eagerness to apologize that she hadn’t realized she’s still hurting Lexa. Coming here, all battered and bruised, worrying Lexa when she doesn’t have the right to do that - it all adds to the list of things she’s done to hurt the one person she never meant to hurt.

But still, something inside Clarke clings to Lexa’s words -  _ for now _ . Something inside her unfolds and wraps around those two words before hurrying back to its dark corner, now lit up with a hope she isn’t sure she is allowed to feel. Maybe, someday, they’ll get to be friends.

They make their way to the kitchen in silence. Clarke keeps her gaze on the ground in front of her, pressing her hand on her forearm to keep the bandage in place - she doesn’t have to do it, there’s enough tape around it to keep it secure even if she tries to pluck it off, but the slight sting that pressure causes isn’t as painful as the sting in her heart.

Clarke wonders if it’d be  _ too _ unpolite to just bolt to the door and text Raven instead of checking up on her in person. Her entire upbringing says that  _ yes, it would _ \- Raven peeled her off the ground and made sure she didn’t need to be driven to the hospital  _ and  _ took her home, all the while fighting her lurching stomach. She looks at Lexa for a moment. Maybe Clarke could stay back and ask her to send Raven her way, maybe she should thank Lexa right here and call Raven on her way home - because  _ it’ll hurt less _ . 

But when Lexa holds the kitchen door open for her to go in first, Clarke lets out a breath she didn’t even realize she was holding. All the hope shimmering in her heart will break it sooner rather than later, but she murmurs a  _ “thanks” _ and steps into the kitchen.

The scene that greets her is almost as comical as the way Lexa stops dead in her tracks, whatever words she had been meaning to say staying stuck in her throat.

Anya is by the stove, flipping pancakes with a mastery Clarke wouldn’t have expected from her - judging by the growing pile beside her and the bowl still mostly filled with batter, she wants to feed the entire block. Raven is sitting on a stool near the counter, half watching Anya cook, half drinking her milkshake, and Clarke is glad to see she no longer looks  _ green _ and her cheeks are almost back to their usual blush. And Aden has a matching milkshake, which means it’s bigger than his face and tilted in a dangerous angle, threatening to spill all the contents into his lap soon if no one gives him a bigger straw.

He’s happily swinging his legs on the stool around the corner from Raven and snaps his head back when he hears the door. “Mommy!” he squeals at the sight of Lexa, his grin lighting up his ice cream smeared face - he managed to get it on his nose, his chin and all around his lips, “Want some?”

Clarke watches in awe as Lexa shifts effortlessly into  _ mom mode _ \- her shoulders lift and she smiles fondly, as if she were carrying a heavy burden that weighed her shoulders now and the mere sight of Aden, all covered in chocolate ice cream and two minutes away from being hyper on sugar, is enough to make her let it go. 

She lights up at Aden, “No, baby, thank you.” Lexa walks towards him, placing a gentle hand on his back and reaching for the milkshake, holding it in a way that allows him to reach for the straw without strain. “But whose idea it was to give my four year old milkshake and pancakes covered in syrup an hour before his bedtime?”

“That would be Anya,” Raven snitches without thinking twice, ignoring the burning glare from Anya as she takes another sip from her milkshake. Lexa shoots a look at Anya, but it’s more annoyed than angry. Clarke knows they’re on relative good terms again and they  _ were _ working together before she got here, so it’s nothing short of amusing to see Anya turning back to her pancakes, the tips of her ears warming to a pink shade, “Well, I asked for myself, but I couldn’t eat while the poor thing watched.”

Lexa sighs, brushing his bangs away from his forehead half a second before he dips them into the milkshake, “It’ll be impossible to get him down with him all hyper on sugar.”

“Try it, mommy,” Aden urges and looks up, pushing the milkshake towards her, “It’s so good!”

Aden giggles as Lexa brings the straw to her lips and takes a sip, making yummy noises at him and wiggling her eyebrows before placing the straw near him again. She smiles heartfeltly and presses a kiss to the top of his head, watches him greedily drink the milkshake like he’s scared she’ll take it away from him at any minute. But Lexa seems to have accepted her fate - she’ll have a child jumping up and down her bed until well past midnight, but it’s all worth it just to see the look in his face.

Clarke takes a step back, averting her eyes to Raven. It feels like she’s witnessing some private moment she’s not allowed to. 

She clears her throat to catch their attention, “I should go. Thank you for saving me,” Clarke says with a snort, because it’s a teasing more than an actual thanks, but Raven smiles at her without leaving her milkshake. “And, uh, Lexa?” Clarke turns to meet Lexa’s eyes, ignoring the way her stomach sways and drops, “Thanks patching me up.” Lexa nods shortly and Clarke can’t do much but wave them all goodbye, “I see you guys around.”

“Wait, no!” Aden startles, pushing his milkshake towards his mom and shimming on the stool, almost knocking it over and falling face to the ground, until he’s looking at Clarke, “You have to try auntie Anya’s pancakes. She never cooks, it’ll be so good.” Clarke looks at Lexa, but nothing in her expression gives her a clear sign of whether she should stay or go. “The pancakes and the milkshake too, you have to try it.” Aden says again and taps the stool beside him, almost falling over before Lexa wraps an arm around his middle, “You sit here beside me.”

Clarke takes a step forward, keeping her distance as she tries to reason with him, “Thank you for offering, Aden, but I really should go.”

“But you’re sick,” he says, like it’s a no-brainer that she  _ has  _ to stay, “You have a booboo here,” he points to her arm, before reaching up to her lips, “and here and milkshake and pancakes will help.” Aden wiggles up and down for a moment before reaching behind him and plucking the milkshake from his mom’s fingers, pushing it down the counter, “I’ll share my milkshake with you. Here you go.”

It’s all too damn sweet for Clarke to just walk away - and Aden seems to know that too, considering the way he pouts and looks at her with big pleading eyes. Clarke glances at Lexa, silently asking for permission. Lexa holds her gaze for a moment and looks down to see her son pouting as he leans forward, doing grabby hands towards Clarke, looking like he’s five seconds away from whining.

Lexa looks up again and studies Clarke, her scrutinizing glare making Clarke want to flee, before nodding. 

Clarke mouths a “ _ thank you _ ” to Lexa before making her way to Aden, perching up on the stool beside him. “If you’re sharing your milkshake, I guess I have to stay, don’t I?” Clarke asks and scrunches up her nose to Aden, making him giggle at her.

“Yay!” Aden does a little dance on his stool and Lexa has to grip his middle again to keep him from tumbling down face first. Clarke takes a sip from the milkshake to prove that she is indeed staying and Aden almost squeals at her. “Aunt Anya, can you make me another milkshake, please?” he drags the ‘ _ please _ ’ and Clarke can’t help the way her heart swells - that kid really knows how to be cute.

Anya tosses another pancake to the top of the pile before reaching out for the batter and pouring some on the pan. Only then she looks over her shoulder, “Raven, could you? I’m kinda busy here.”

“And I’m recovering from my injuries,” Raven says in an outraged tone that makes Aden giggle, even if her  _ injuries _ consist in little more than being queasy at the sight of blood. She clutches her milkshake to show she’s not going anywhere, and looks away from Anya, “Lexa?”

“Well, I guess I have no excuse,” Lexa says with a shrugs and a wink to Aden, in that motherly way that clearly tells she’s indulging all this for his sake alone, “What flavor do you want, baby?”

“Strawberry!” Aden yells, much louder than he needs to, and swings wildly around the stool. Lexa reaches out to steady him without thinking twice - she’s a mom, she has mom reflexes when it comes to her child being in danger. Clarke peels her eyes away from them, swirling her milkshake with her straw, feeling like she’s intruding, “Make one for you too, mommy. We can have milkshake for dinner and not yucky veggies. Just tonight.”

“Will we eat our green beans tomorrow without complaining?” Lexa bargains with him and Aden is either too excited about having milkshake for dinner or too hyper on sugar already, because he shouts that  _ yes, we will _ . “Clarke?” Lexa calls her halfway through her laughter, her name echoing in her chest. Clarke has to pretend the sound of her name woven into Lexa’s laughter doesn’t make her nearly jump out of her skin when she looks at her, “Could you watch him? Raven would let him fall without even getting up from her seat.”

“Again, I’m recovering,” Raven protests, propping her bad leg on the stool beside hers to make her point.

“Yes, absolutely,” Clarke agrees, scooting her stool closer to Aden’s so she can rest her arm around his little body, ready to support him in case he throws himself back. Lexa brushes his hair away from his face and spares Clarke one last glance before going towards the fridge to get the ice cream. “Hey, bud? Want to help me with this one while yours isn’t ready?”

“Yeah!” Aden shouts, nearly making Clarke go deaf as she reaches for the paper towel holder and snaps a few sheets to wipe the glass clean of all the stickiness - the handiwork of a four year old left alone to his own devices.

She holds the milkshake for Aden, figuring it’ll be less of a mess if he doesn’t have to reach up and stick his hand inside the glass before getting a grip on it. Her years of teaching kindergartens kick in like muscle memory and Clarke gets more paper towels to wipe his cheek clean, asks for his hands so she can get the worst of the stickiness off, boops his nose to say she’s all done, smiles back when he grins at her with the straw wedged in between his teeth.

“So, how was it?” Raven pokes her arm with a little more force than necessary, considering there’s a gash underneath that bandage. Clarke peels her eyes away from Aden, who’s now gripping the straw with one hand and holding on to her arm with another, and frowns at Raven - does she mean the bandaging or- “You and Lexa?”

_ Oh _ .

Clarke pauses, takes a deep breath in, wills her heart to stay calm after hearing ‘ _ you and Lexa _ ’. She racks her brain to find the right way to describe how she feels lighter after putting into words everything that had been tangled together in her chest, how she feels heavier after realizing she’s still hurting Lexa no matter what she does, how confusing it is to know Lexa worries about her but doesn’t want her near her.

“It was… Okay. Surprisingly okay,” she breathes out, settling for a half truth. “We talked as she patched me up, I got to explain myself to her. It was okay.” And it had been  _ okay _ \- Clarke was expecting a lot more yelling or at least some storming out. But she talked and Lexa listened, she couldn’t ask for anything else. “But I’ll take a step back and give her space. And if that means I don’t get to come over and avoid going certain places, I’m fine with it.”

Clarke could try to brush it off with a joke like she always does when Raven brings up Lexa, she could say Lexa will be the one missing out if she doesn’t want to see her pretty face more often, but it doesn’t feel quite right. Because Lexa won’t be missing out on anything - she has good friends, a job she loves and the sweetest son anyone could ask for.

Lexa has a good life and there’s no place for Clarke in it.

Glancing up at Lexa, Clarke watches the way she moves effortlessly around the kitchen, grabbing everything she needs without any fear of burning the house down - if Clarke never gets to see how Lexa has improved her cooking skills, she pretends that it doesn’t make her sad. 

Almost as if she senses someone is staring at her, Lexa turns back to smile at her son, who’s way too busy trying to scrape the foam from the top of the glass, and then looks at Clarke, holding her gaze for a moment. Her smile drops from her lips and Clarke sees the way her throat bobs up and down as she turns her attention back to the blender in front of her.

“I guess chez Griffin is the new hangout spot then,” Raven says, hardly bothered by the news. “Oh, we can invite Wells and that scrawny History teacher too, what’s-his-face. Do they watch The Walking Dead?”

“Yeah, sure,” Clarke forces herself to look away from Lexa, focus on the little swirl on the top of Aden’s head, barely registering what Raven said. She sighs, turning to her friend, “I miss her, Raven.”

“I know you do,” Raven agrees without giving Clarke any grief about not paying attention to her and reaches out to squeeze Clarke’s arm. She looks at Lexa, talking to Anya in hushed tones, and then back to Clarke. “But I see the way you look at each other, I see the way Lexa looks at  _ you _ . She’s hurt but it’s obvious that she still loves you, even after all this time.” Clarke has to bite her lip to keep herself from welling up, but it only makes her wince when her teeth sinks into her cut, “You two will be okay.”

Before Clarke can say anything, Aden tugs at her to ask why she’s not drinking the milkshake too and what happened to her face and if the kids who did this to her were mean. She brushes his hair back as she sips the milkshake, giving it back to him when she starts telling him the tale of how she got all these battle scars. It’s more or less what really happened, but Clarke tells it with wide eyes and different voices for each of the character - including a tickle monster that not even she knows where came from.

Between Aden giggles and Raven adding details from when they had  _ fallen into the pit of despair _ , Clarke doesn’t notice Lexa watching the scene, a smile in her lips and fondness in her eyes.


	4. hushed tones and feverish skin — part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These last couple months have been brutal for me — between starting school again and some nasty health issues that won't leave me alone and keep me from writing more days than I'd like, it took me quite some time to get even this done. But instead of making you guys wait maybe another two months for the whole chapter, I split it in half!
> 
> I haven't been able to answer to all your comments, which I intend to do once I get better, but I'd just like to tell you guys I read them all and they make me grin like a damn child! Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know you enjoy this story, both here and on Tumblr, it means a lot to me — some days, it's really what makes me get through and keeps me going.
> 
> For the ones of you who asked, I'm not giving up on this story. I fully intend on finishing it, I put these two (and you guys) through too much for me to stop before they're living their best life. So updates might take a while to come, but worry not, they'll come.

Watching people talk and laugh in her tiny apartment that has definitely not been planned to host any gathering larger than three people, Clarke can almost convince herself she’s happy.

 _Almost_.

Because she lives in a beautiful city with beautiful places to see, she has a job where she can see herself making a difference on a day to day basis, she has her art being showcased in an exhibition that will last for months to come - which had been her lifelong dream, something she craved since the moment she picked up a brush. She has good people in her life now, kind and caring people she’s happy to call _friends_ , people who make her life better, richer, fuller.

And most of the time, that’s enough.

Most of the time, she’s genuinely content with her life.

It’s a far cry from her days as an escort, days she spent avoiding every glimpse of friendship, boycotting anyone who dared to come close to her. When she found herself in art school or teaching kindergarten, she’d spend her days either painting in her apartment or painting with excitable three year olds.

Her tiny students, who are probably well into second grade by now, taught her a lot about life - in that pure and brutal way only small children can managed to. They taught her it’s okay to cry when you’re hurt, it’s okay to laugh when you feel like it, even if there’s no reason. They gave her Valentine’s Day cards that came with sloppy kisses and tight hugs, they made her drawings that filled her heart with pure joy, they fell asleep in her arms when they woke up from a nightmare during nap time.

It was one of the craziest, most incredible year of her life and she’d be lying if she said those little people, who barely reached her knees in their best days, didn’t teach her more about opening up and letting people in than anyone else in her life.

Anyone else besides Lexa.

It still amazes her to this day how Lexa managed to sneak past all of her defenses without trying, without even meaning to. Because Lexa had been so worried about keeping her tumbling walls still standing up that she didn’t realize she knocked down any and every one of Clarke’s defense, showed her what love could taste like when Clarke had swore off of it for life, invited her to a world that had seemed forbidden for her.

There’s a lull in the conversation - that, truthfully, she’d been only half paying attention - when Wells turns to scan the room, looking for his fiancée. His eyes skip past everyone else in the room, glancing around until he finds the woman who’s been his reason to wake up in the morning for almost a decade now - and he’s looking for her for no reason at all other than _look_ at her. Clarke sees the love in his eyes, see it reflected in the woman across the room that smiles coyly at him and when Clarke excuses herself to go grab a beer, she isn’t even sure Wells hears her.

She wants that - she wants the kind of love that erases everything around her, that blurries the edges of the world until only one person is in focus.

Clarke drags her feet to the corner she dares to call a kitchen, trying to keep her chin up and a smile frozen in her lips. She wants to feel like _that_ and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever get another chance to.

It’s been almost two months since Clarke saw Lexa last - at Raven’s, with a busted lip and a pounding heart that was too lost to know how to react to having her so close again. For a moment there, between cleaning the cuts and trying to keep the conversation flowing, Clarke saw a soft light at the end of the tunnel, something she was more than willing to cling to. For a moment, she thought she and Lexa could try to be friends before anything else.

But then they had decided to avoid each other like the plague instead.

Lexa needs distance from her, from the memories she stirred up, from everything she brought back to the surface. Clarke doesn’t blame her for it and she _has_ been keeping her end of their agreement - it’s not all that hard to avoid running into Lexa, she had done that for over two months before finding the courage to knock on her door and threw the shit right at the fan.

She misses Lexa. She aches for her, more so now than she did in those six years. Because what Clarke didn’t know, couldn’t hurt her. Because back then, she could still hold on to the ridiculous notion that Lexa would forgive her without ever hearing an apology. Because now she knows exactly how much she fucked up.

Lexa will reach out when she’s ready, if she is ever. Clarke knows that and is trying her hardest to accept it, but she misses Lexa, she misses the shot they never quite took, she misses the lost time they might never be able to make up for.

Things didn’t turn out to be as utopic as she had daydreamed they would be, bute saw Lexa last  Clarke is still pretty damn proud with how far she’s come. Looking around her, she sees amazing people who genuinely enjoy her company and want nothing more from her than just that. There’s been a learning curve with that, because after so much time being reminded over and over again that people would never want to simply talk to her, it’s taken her a while to get used to the idea of having _friends_.

And it’s all thanks to Raven.

Clarke still hasn’t decided if meeting Raven in a chance encounter was a blessing or a curse. Raven has got to be one of the most genuine people Clarke has ever met. She’s unabashedly loud, incredibly strong willed and she can be stubborn as a mule but nothing will stay in her way once she’s set her mind to it. Clarke knows her life in Toronto wouldn’t be the same without Raven, that that crazy engineer who’s always ready to blow shit up is the closest thing she ever had to a best friend.

But there’s always something in the back of her mind telling her that all of this is based on lies, that she’s not worthy of having someone like Raven in her life, someone who will force her to go out and make more friends, someone who will insist on setting her up on dates because she doesn’t want Clarke to be lonely, someone who is willing to force her past her comfort zone to find some joy in her life.

It stings to be lying like this. Because as far as Raven is concerned, Clarke doesn’t talk to her mom anymore simply because she chose to be an artist instead of a doctor and that’s the reason she’s so closed off, that’s the reason she couldn’t give up what she had in New York and commit to Lexa. She knows bits and pieces that Clarke tells her, whatever she can’t keep inside, but Raven isn’t dumb enough not to realize Clarke is hiding a big part of her life from her.

She doesn’t know if the ache in her chest is from guilt or sorrow, but it stings to know she needs to keep herself on check at all times, can never allow herself to fully relax around Raven and maybe have that fifth beer. Because maybe that’s the one that will take her over the edge and make her think it’s a good idea to confess to everything, half drunk and too emotional. Clarke had told herself over and over that she’d tell Raven, that she’d sit her down and give her a boxing glove and tell her everything, put it all on the table and face the consequences.

And she _will._ When the time is right.

But the time is hardly right when she has a bunch of half drunk teachers in her living room, talking loudly over the TV and pretending to be cooler than they are - because she’s pretty sure someone is talking about two students who broke up last week and are still the gossip of the school.

Grabbing her beer, Clarke turns to look for the bottle opener and find Wells again - she was about to ask him something about the play his students need to write for her students to act before his attention got stolen. But she barely makes it out of the kitchen before she runs into Monty and Jasper, both looking with nothing but despair to the dying plant on her dining table.

“How long has it been since you watered the poor thing?” Jasper asks with genuine worry, looking up to glare at her as he caresses the browning leaf of the plant. He teaches Earth Science and his love for Biology is contagious - every now and then someone will bring a little bean sprout into art class and claim it’s one of _Mr. Jordan’s experiences_ \- so Clarke can see in his eyes how much he wants to take that plant home and bring it back to life.

She’s been meaning to throw it out for quite some time now, but that’s one plant that survived the winter alongside with her. “I poured a little water into it two- maybe three weeks ago,” the lilt in her voice makes it sound like a question, almost as if she’s hoping that really is the right answer.

Monty mutters something she doesn’t quite catch - something between _what the hell_ and _are you insane_ \- and all but cuddles the little vase, taking the plant to the kitchen so he can pour some water into it and will it back to life. For a Chemistry teacher, whose main job is to burn shit up, Monty really has a soft spot for the living things.

Jasper sighs, taking a long swig from his beer before turning to lecture her on how to keep her plants alive - _you either get a self watering planter or a spray bottle and spray water on it once a day instead of drowning it once a month_ \- and promising her he’ll bring over some more resistant plants for her to care after. Clarke gives up on finding a bottle opener and cracks it open with her teeth, drinking and mostly paying attention to him. At least up until he starts talking about plants in terms too technical for her to understand.

She lets her eyes wander across the bunch she has in her living room and the sight makes her smile - these people seem to feel at home at her place. Maya - Jasper’s girlfriend, one of the sweetest people Clarke met - has kicked off her shoes and is sitting cross legged on the couch, listening to Nathan begging her to apply at their school to work as a nurse to keep his boyfriend - Bryan, the PE teacher that makes the girls flush from head to toe when he decides to run shirtless - from having to patch up kids when they hurt in practice.

Then Clarke catches sight of Wells welcoming his fiancée into his arms, setting his palm on the small of her back, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. She smiles and rests her head on his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his waist as they both look out the window, enjoying the city lights as much as they enjoy their moment alone. It’s a sight for sore eyes, but Clarke averts hers - it feels like too intimate of a moment for her to be gawking at them.

Before Clarke can begin to feel sorry for herself, before the bitterness settles into her stomach and turns her mood sour, there’s an awkward knock on the door. She excuses herself to go answer it, leaving Monty to dig through her cabinets in search for something that will bring her plant back to life.

The awkward knock echoes across the apartment and Clarke opens the door to find Raven. Using the six pack she’s cradling in one arm to knock on the door. Because of course.

“I come bearing gifts,” Raven says in a pompous way in lieu of a greeting, dumping the six pack on Clarke’s arms and walking inside without even bothering to pretend she doesn’t feel completely at home. She shuts the door closed with her back leg and walks to the kitchen, barely avoiding a frontal collision with Monty, who nods his hello as he tends to the little plant. “Your place is _packed_. Do you have the whole school over or? Because then I should’ve brought more beers.”

Clarke scoffs at that, walking past Raven to put the six pack in the fridge. Everyone brought a pack and each person drank half a beer so far. “There are like five people here, Reyes. My apartment is tiny, that’s why it feels crowded.” Clarke says, peeking over Raven’s shoulder to see what else she brought - chips and salsa, because no one remembered they’d need snacks.

While Raven rummages through her cabinets to find bowls to put the massive amount of food she brought, Clarke leans over the counter and looks around her living room, at her guests and the lively conversation filling her whole apartment. She’s pretty proud of it. She’s never hosted any sort of get together before, she barely even had many people over at all, and despite the lack of snacks and no board games - apparently, it’s a must -, Clarke can call this a success.

“Who are all these people?” Raven asks as she munches on a chip, sliding it over for Clarke to get some. _All these people_ make it sound like there really is a lot more than seven people.

“You know them all, woman,” Clarke laughs, helping Raven organize the salsa in the middle of the chips, “They’re teachers at the school and you’ve personally talked to every single one of them at some point over the last couple weeks.”

Raven has been going to the school twice a week to work with the kids in the robotics program - it’s more like a _club_ , but Raven refuses to call it that - and the teacher's are all very warm and welcoming. She scans the room again, realization dawning on her as she recognizes most of the faces. “I don’t know that one,” she points her chip to Maya, who’s now holding the plant for Jasper to stir the soil, “Or that one by the window.”

“Oh, that’s Sasha. Wells’ fiancée?” Clarke says as she takes a swig from her beer, watching Raven’s eyebrows shoot to her hairline as she nods.

They’ve been hanging out with Wells a _lot_ lately.Wells and Clarke talk a lot about whatever book they’re reading at the time and he’s not only very interested in art, but has _muscles_ that are great for carrying artwork from her apartment to the gallery. And Raven has been really trying to get him excited about sports, but mostly he tolerates it. The one constant in all the time they spend together is how much he loves Sasha - he won’t shut up about her if anyone gives him any little edge - and both Raven and Clarke felt like they know Sasha already.

“Oh, she’s _hot_ ,” Raven says through a haze, looking at the way her curls sway lightly around her shoulders as she turns around when Wells pokes her, how her eyes shine at the sight of him. Sasha is unbelievably attractive, in an effortless ‘ _I’m always hydrated and do morning yoga in our backyard with our golden retriever_ ’ way that makes Clarke want to hate her, but that’s a very hard thing to accomplish.

“And she’s so fucking lovely it’s almost annoying. Wells is definitely a lucky guy,” Clarke tries to sound less bitter than she feels and a lot more happy for the couple. Because she is happy for them. It’s just that sometimes she wishes she could have the same, she knows she probably never will. She grabs a bowl in one hand and her beer in the other, “Come on, let’s go say hi,” she shoots Raven a dirty look, “Behave.”

“When have I not behaved?” Raven sounds genuinely outraged as they make their way out of the kitchen and Clarke has to stop herself from rolling her eyes too much as she puts both their bowls on the coffee table.

“Do you want me to list it chronologically or by how _bad_ it was?” Clarke still hasn’t gotten over her offering to babysit Aden so Clarke could take Lexa out, and that seems to pop in Raven’s mind as well because she nods in agreement, walking over to Sasha and Wells. “Hey, lovebirds,” Clarke says to call their attention and watches with an ache in her chest as Sasha turns around in Wells’ arms to look at them, “Here’s the famous Raven.”

“Oh, I’m famous?”

“Yeah, we were talking shit about you before you got here,” Clarke says with a straight face as both Wells and Sasha crack up, and Raven very unceremoniously punches her on the arm with a ‘ _who’s not behaving now, bitch?’_ glare.

“I’m only heard good things about you, don’t worry. I’m Sasha,” she shakes Raven’s hand, a smile that reaches her eyes and lights up her whole face. Clarke has to give it to Sasha. She’s ridiculously charming. “Wells tells me you’re helping out at the school with some fancy program?”

“We’re working on robotics. The kids are really interested in it, I don’t think they’ve had anything like this before,” Raven talks about her work with the kids with such passion that Clarke believes for a moment that she really will keep it civil. But oh, that’s wishful thinking, “I’m trying to get them to build the whole cast for Romeo and Juliet so we can make Literature less boring.” She makes a show of rolling her eyes, just to show exactly how boring she thought it all was - Raven is constantly teasing Wells, trying to get a rise out of him.

Wells smirks. He knows it’s half heartedly at best, but there’s something daring in his eyes. “Ask Sasha what she does for a living, Raven,” he says with a calm, slow voice, but his lips quirk in a sly grin and Clarke almost chokes on her beer. Because she knows what Sasha does and Wells can be _mean_.

Raven turns to Sasha and raises her eyebrows in a silent question. Wells shares a look with her fiancée before she answers, “I teach Literature at the University of Toronto.”

“You two are a match made in heaven, aren’t you?” Raven says with feigned disgust and Clarke lets out a hearty laugh. Of course Raven would make a fool of herself.

Clarke excuses herself when Nathan shouts her name and waves her over. He had mentioned he wanted to talk more about her art ever since she showed everyone the pictures she took from her exhibition - she has pictures of every little corner of her dream come true. They all want to go see it one weekend, whenever everyone is free and Clarke is there to talk a little about everything she created.

But Nathan had asked her to send him the pictures so he could show them to a friend. Clarke did, even if she felt weird sending him a picture of herself with two thumbs up in front of the most brutal painting she had - a battlefield drenched in blood and forgotten swords. He had told her in passing that he’s a part time writer, but Bryan had given her some of his boyfriend’s pieces and it was mostly contemporary gay fiction.

Clarke half wants to plop onto the couch and grab one of the bowls so she can eat chips and salsa without sharing it with anyone else, but Nathan meets her halfway. He’s hanging up on someone on his phone and talking too fast for Clarke to understand, but slowly, as if her brain is working with a hand crank, she puts the pieces together - Nathan showed her art to a friend who writes science fiction and dystopian novels and she wants to talk to Clarke about working alongside with her, either by having Clarke painting a whole new array of characters or basing her next novel on the story Clarke tells with her art.

Before Clarke has time to fully comprehend what he’s saying and how huge this could be, Raven marches towards her and grabs her arm, dragging her past the door to her bedroom without saying a single word.

“What the hell, Raven?” Clarke half yells as she almost tumbles to the ground, fully aware everyone can hear her - they _are_ separated from the group by nothing more than a _curtain_ \- but she’s too startled to bother pretending her soul didn’t almost leave her body just now.

But then she sees the panicked look on Raven’s face, the way her eyebrows are drawn together and her mouth is turned into a frown. “Do you know anything about taking care of sick kids?”

“I- What?” Clarke tries to understand what Raven is talking about and notices that she has her phone gripped tightly in her hand, the other still holding her arm.

“You were a pre med at some point, right?” Raven asks urgently, her words tripping over one another, “Did you learn anything? Like how to make a fever go down and all that?”

“Yeah, I- I mean, I worked with the little ones for a while and I helped my mom at a few hospitals back in high school,” Clarke is still very much confused, to say the least, but she indulges Raven, answering her questions without blinking. She doesn’t remember ever seeing her so distraught. “But who’s sick? Are you sick? I can call Maya, she’s a nurse-”

“No, Clarke,” Raven pauses, “It’s Aden.” Raven’s voice is as wrapped in worry as is her face, the line between her brows deepening with each breath. Clarke feels her own stomach sinking - because she might have only met him twice, but he’s a sweet little boy, a sweet little boy who’s part of Lexa and if he’s in pain, she is as well. But Clarke understands what Raven means. This is _Lexa_. She wouldn’t want a stranger prodding her son.  “He has a fever that won’t go down and his doctor can only see him in the morning.”

Clarke finds herself nodding, ready to agree to anything Raven needs her to do. She imagines tiny little Aden, sweating buckets, weak with fever - it’s almost weird how much she worries.

“I’ll go over there. I’ll drop by a pharmacy to pick up some things, but I can be there in less than half an hour,” Clarke says as she turns away from Raven, rummaging through her dresser to see if she has anything she can use, getting her things ready, trying to figure out what the hell she’ll do with the apartment filled to the brim with people.

“Wait. Clarke, _wait_ ,” Raven tugs at her sweater until Clarke drops the soft towel she was holding - what would she even do with that? - and looks back at her, “Anya called me but she didn’t even mention it to Lexa yet. Just- Hang on.” Clarke nods, feeling her heart sinking painfully, her throat closing. She holds her breath as she waits for Raven to talk to Anya, tell her that Clarke can be there in half an hour if Lexa wants her - and that’s a big _if_. Then she nods, “Yeah, I’ll hold.”

It had been a pipe dream to think she’d be the first one Lexa would think about when she needs someone to help her care after her son. It’s almost delusional to consider that when she had made it crystal clear that she wants distance from Clarke.

Clarke watches Raven for maybe ten full seconds before she bursts, “What did she say? Is she talking to Lexa?”

Raven doesn’t say anything, simply nods and taps the screen a few times until she puts the call on speaker. It’s all faint noises for a moment, whatever audible sound being drowned by the laughter coming from the living room, but then Anya starts talking, “ _You know who knows medical things and would be more than willing to come over?_ ”

The line goes almost totally silent, except for some fussing in the background - Clarke can hear tiny grunts, too far away for her to have any clue about how bad Aden feels. After a heartbeat, Lexa’s voice comes through, “ _No_.”

It hurts to breathe - it’s like she has thorns glued to her lungs, thorns that threaten to prick her heart whenever she inhales too deeply, and she’s in constant danger of bleeding out.

But she takes a deep breath anyway, knowing it’s ridiculous that a single word is enough to stir something inside her to much that it makes her taste bile. She _knows_ that Lexa doesn’t want to see her, to be near her, to even hear about her. She knows this, even if some senseless part of her wishes that Lexa would think about her, even for a single moment.

Clarke has tried so fucking hard not to think about Lexa in these last few weeks, has really tried to move on. It’s something she should have done years ago, but she knows she couldn’t, not back then, not before she made a complete fool of herself and ruined any chance she might have had at having Lexa in her life. Now is the time to try her hardest to leave those feelings behind, because it’s obvious that they won’t end up together.

Still. That one word makes all the times she craved being beside Lexa come back and punch her in the gut.

“ _Lexa_ ,” Anya pleads with her and it doesn’t take a genius to know Lexa is more than likely throwing daggers at Anya for pushing her on this. Clarke knows this is a done deal - Lexa won’t allow her to come over and check on Aden, she’d probably rather take him to the emergency room before that.

There’s more fussing on the other side of the line, a weak voice calling out “ _mommy_ ” in the kind of tone that can only belong to a sick child.

“ _I don’t want her near him_ ,” Lexa sounds nothing short of feral. It’s a mother trying to keep her son from getting hurt, knowing he’s too young to handle the heartbreak. It’s coming from a place of hurt as well, from a wound that isn’t quite healed yet, that might never be.

The somber moment is cut short when Aden bursts into a coughing fit, the barking sounds making Clarke’s skin crawl. He cries out as he gasps for air, trying to suck in oxygen that isn’t coming and, between hearing that and Lexa’s futile attempts at soothing him, Clarke is almost driving herself there before Lexa agrees to it.

But she forces herself to wait when Anya talks again, raising her voice to be heard over the sound of Aden’s coughing. “ _She won’t hurt him, Lex. She can help_.”

There’s a retching sound and more coughing - Aden is throwing up, which isn’t uncommon after coughing fits, but it doesn’t ease anyone’s mind. “ _I know that_ . _I just-_ ” Lexa stops mid sentence, cooing Aden for a moment and saying that it’s okay, that she’s not mad - is he worried about having thrown up? “ _Anya, I don’t want him to get attached just to have her leave him_.”

The “ _like she left me_ ” is left unsaid, but Clarke hears it nonetheless.

“ _Your child is almost delirious with fever and coughing like crazy. He probably won’t even notice that she’s here,_ ” Anya says through gritted teeth, her tone hard and calculated. It’s the tone she’s used with Clarke for the better part of the time they’ve known each other, the same tone that makes Clarke turn white as a ghost and flee the room. “ _You’re the one who doesn’t want to get hurt, and I get it. I do. But Clarke can get Aden to feel better. So could you please put your pride away for once and help your son?”_

Clarke needs a moment to process the words Anya spits at Lexa. It’s a harsh thing to say, even for Anya, and Clarke shakes herself off her daze, looking at Raven with her eyebrows raised in shock, mouthing a “ _wow_ ”. Raven simply nods in agreement - it seems to be a surprise for her as well that Anya could talk like that to Lexa and come out of it alive.

But her words seem to have struck a chord with Lexa.

A moment later, Anya talks right into the receiver, “ _Tell her to come_.”

Before Raven has even disconnected the call, Clarke has her things ready and is bolting out the door. She’s halfway to the door before she tracks back to the living room, telling everyone to hang out and make themselves at home because she needs to leave for a moment. Her tongue itches when she says that “a friend’s son” needs her - because Lexa isn’t that, she’s much more but not even close to that at the same time. No one seems to mind much once she says she’ll be back with pizzas in no time and Raven will work as the host while she’s away.

“Text me when you know what’s wrong. Or tell Anya to call me,” Raven says as she walks Clarke to the door, the deep line in her forehead telling how worried she is. “Give my godson a kiss for me.”

Clarke laughs and not even her can tell if it’s because she’s amused or too nervous, “Sure, because Lexa obviously will let me do that.”

If her heart beats just that little more erratic, Clarke pretends it’s got nothing to do with how Lexa will react to her presence. She’s just out of shape and running down the stairs doesn’t help.

Her foot is heavy on the gas and Clarke has half a mind to call Anya, ask her to tell her exactly what Aden is feeling, to give her any guidance on what she should be getting from the pharmacy, to ease her mind on whether she should try to deal with it herself to impress Lexa or just drive them to the emergency room. But that would only slow her down. She drops by a pharmacy and grabs as many things as she can think of, anything that might be useful: fever medicine, cough syrup, tongue depressors, even some weird tea made out of Paracetamol.

In fifteen minutes flat, she’s knocking on Lexa’s door.

Anya comes to the door, dressed in a suit pant and tie-neck shirt - which means they both probably came straight from the office. “Come in,” Anya says in a tired voice, a far cry from the bossy tone she usually handles Clarke with. She lets Clarke inside and closes the door behind her, walking away, expecting Clarke to follow, “They’re in the living room.”

Toeing out of her shoes so she doesn’t disturb Aden any more than she has to, Clarke grabs the pharmacy bag overflowing with a random assortment of first aid necessities and takes a deep breath in before she walks to the living room.

The sight she finds breaks her heart. Lexa, who’s never been less than completely put together in the whole time Clarke knew her, is sitting cross legged on the couch, wearing sweatpants and a vomit stained tee, her hair tied in a bun that threatens to fall undone at any moment, her face contorted into a worried expression. She doesn’t even look up when Clarke makes her way to the living room, too focused on trying to comfort a crying Aden wrapped around her middle.

Clarke puts the pharmacy bag on the coffee table and kneels in front of Lexa so she’s level with Aden. “What happened?” She doesn’t bother with greetings or any pleasantries, which seems fine by Lexa.

Aden looks miserable. He’s sweating so much it rolls down his temples, making his hair stick to his forehead even when Lexa tries to push it away. Clarke watches him for only a moment and it’s enough for her to feel her guts wrapping into a knot - Aden goes from breathing heavily to coughing so hard he dry-heaves for a second before settling back into his mom’s arms.

“He’s had a bit of a cold for a few days now, which is fine for this time of the year. But he started coughing a lot after I got home and Harper said he had a very labored breathing since she got him from preschool,” Lexa cradles him closer when he starts with another burst of coughing, clutching his mom’s shirt and whining when it finally lets out. “I just took his temperature, he has a 101ºF fever. He threw up right after Anya told you to come.” She’s spilling out facts, anything that might happen, and for the first time since Clarke walked in, Lexa looks up and meets her eyes, “I don’t know what to do, Clarke.”

If the pleading is obvious in her voice, it gets painful when Clarke meets her eyes.

She knows that words of comfort isn’t what Lexa needs right now. She needs someone that will make her son better, and that’s what Clarke is here to do. Or at least, fucking try. “What did you give him for his fever?”

“I gave him Ibuprofen-” Lexa looks at the wall clock at the kitchen, “-four hours ago. But it didn’t break the fever.”

Clarke does the mental math, trying to remember what her mother taught her way back in high school, what she’s learned while caring after preschoolers all day. “Do you think you can get him to sit up? I need to check his throat, if you don’t mind.” She gets to her feet and brushes the back of her hand on Aden’s temple, trying to feel his fever. Clarke has two good guesses as to what he might have and she wants to check for both, but the barking cough is a dead giveaway. “I’ll wash up.”

She springs to the kitchen, quickly washing her hands and making them warm enough so Aden doesn’t have to put up with how cold her hands are when she touches his feverish skin. From the sink, Clarke watches Lexa shaking him awake - he seems to be drifting in and out of sleep, probably because of the fever - and the agony of doing that is clear in both of their faces.

Wiping his forehead with an old burp cloth, Lexa tells him the lady with pink hair wants to see him. She definitely knows her child, because that does make Aden perk up, even it only slightly. She tries to sit him up against the couch, but he doesn’t let go of her shirt, whines when she tries again and clings even more.

Clarke has half a mind to tell Lexa it’s okay, that she can look at his throat with him sitting on her lap, because truly, it doesn’t matter much and she really doesn’t want to be the person that takes him away from his mommy when he’s already feeling miserable.

“She wants to look at your throat,” Lexa whispers against his forehead, pressing her lips in a gentle kiss, “Is that okay?” Aden looks back at Clarke, who’s making her way to the couch, and nods before burying his whole body further into Lexa’s embrace.

“Hey, buddy,” Clarke kneels in front of them, pressing her palm gently against his chest. The movement makes her almost lose balance and if she has to grip Lexa’s knee to keep herself from falling down, no one comments on that. “I hear you’re not feeling so well. Does it hurt to breathe?” Aden nods and, as to make his point, air wheezes out of his lungs. Clarke gets a tongue depressor out of the bag, talking him through it, “Can I see your throat? I’ll let you play with the stick after.”

Her tone is cheerful enough that Aden agrees readily, thinking it’s definitely a good deal. Clarke holds his chin and presses his tongue down to look for anything that might indicate amigdalitis or some throat inflammation. There’s nothing there, which rules out one of the two guesses Clarke had. Taking the depressor out causes him to burst into another coughing fit, sounding very much like a dying seal, and it makes Clarke ache with how Lexa cuddles him tighter through the fit, as if she’s trying to make all the hurt go away by shielding him from the world with her own body.

Clarke waits for his cough to quiet down before talking again. “You did such a good job! Here you go!” It looks like the fit drained all the energy Aden had left and he holds the stick Clarke offers him with both hands, not even bothering to play with it. She looks up to meet Lexa’s worried gaze, “Where’s your bathroom? Some steam will do him good.”

Clarke presses her hand to his cheek and he’s still burning up, but she’s pretty positive she knows what he has. Thankfully nothing serious. Between keeping him in the steam until his airways open up and then giving him some Paracetamol to help with the fever, he should feel better and well enough to sleep through the night within the hour.

“Upstairs. What do I do?” It’s obvious that Lexa is still worried sick, but having a tangible task to do that will make her son feel better instead of simply hoping it’ll pass seems to give her something to focus on, “Do I just let the shower running until the bathroom is filled with steam?”

Clarke nods, getting back to her feet. “Do you mind if I take him? I want to listen to his breathing and it’s easier if he’s pressed against me,” Clarke hurries to explain herself before Lexa has the change to get mad at her. Because she knows very well Lexa doesn’t want her son anywhere near Clarke. But she just wants to make sure he’s okay before she leaves.

To her surprise, Lexa nods. “Aden, honey,” she nudges him again, waking him up just before he drifts back to sleep, “Clarke will carry you upstairs, okay? Mommy will be right behind you two.”

Clarke smiles at how Lexa tells him everything that’s happening before it happens, makes sure he’s okay with it. When he doesn’t answer, Lexa looks up at Clarke and nods for her to pick him up. Aden groans when he moves from Lexa’s arms to Clarke’s, in that feverish haze that makes little kids not sure of what’s happening around them, but he grips Clarke’s neck soon after, plopping his head on her shoulder as they make their way upstairs, playing with a fistful of her pink hair.

She walks slowly, one step at a time, trying to focus on how noisy Aden’s breathing is, trying to gauge if they should go to the emergency room or if he’s well enough to wait until the morning. This would be easier with a stethoscope, but she barely remembers how to use one. Aden is flushed - mostly due to his high fever, but his lips are pink and his hands are warm - and active enough, so at least Clarke can tell there’s no immediate danger.

For the first time in eight, maybe nine years, Clarke wishes she could call her mom. She wants to pick up the phone and tell her mom exactly what’s happening, put the receiver against Aden’s heaving chest, let her hear him cough. Because Abby has made Clarke feel like she was living in hell more often than not, but she’s a damn good doctor and Aden needs that right now, needs someone to be at his beck and call.

If she were in good terms with her mom, Clarke could make sure she isn’t screwing this up.

“Mommy?” Aden’s voice is very raspy, caught somewhere between crying and coughing, and Clarke rubs his back as she watches Lexa running in front of them to get the shower started, “Mommy!”

“It’s okay, we’re going to mommy. She’s right here in the bathroom, it’s okay,” Clarke tries to comfort him somehow, knowing very well nothing will make it better. She takes longer steps when she feels a tear hitting her shoulder - it breaks her heart just that little bit more. “Just a few more steps and you’ll see mommy. Can you point me to the bathroom?”

Aden lifts his head just enough to find the door where all the steam is coming from, pointing to it with his stick clutched to his little fist. Lexa has the shower running hot and ready, and Clarke barely has time to kick the door closed with her heel before Aden leans away from her and all but jumps to Lexa.

When kids are sick, there’s nothing quite like their mother’s arms.

Now they wait. It gives Clarke time to think, to watch, to fight words back down her throat, and she doesn’t appreciate it one bit. She makes herself busy for a little while, checking the water to see if it could get any hotter - it’s already piping hot and the whole bathroom is thick with steam.

Lexa has Aden’s legs wrapped around her waist and his arms around her neck, and she walks from one side to the other, rubbing his back, making hushing sounds that seem to bring him some sort of peace. Clarke is so enthralled by this little scene that. when Lexa looks at her, it takes her completely by surprise. “What’s wrong with him, Clarke?” her voice is soft, almost as if she doesn’t want to wake up a newborn who just fell asleep, but dripping with distress.

 _Oh, shit._ Clarke had been so distracted with Lexa simply being a mom, with the little things she does and how readily Aden reacts to her, that she had completely forgotten to tell what she thinks it is - which probably didn’t help Lexa’s nerves at all.

“I’m pretty sure it’s the croup. It’s nasty, but he’ll be find in a couple days,” Clarke says in an apologetic voice, “Steam showers and fresh air will help his airways, and you just need to keep his fever under control.”

Lexa nods and her shoulders sag in pure, visible relief. Clarke wants to reach out and touch her arm, comfort her in any way she can because her son will be fine, he’ll be wreaking havoc in no time at all. But before she can convince herself she can do it, Lexa turns away from her, cuddles Aden until his whole body is showered in motherly love.

If Clarke can hear Lexa sniffling, she keeps it to herself.

His breathing seems to quiet down after a while and he falls asleep on Lexa’s shoulder, his coughing fits giving him a break. Aden doesn’t wake up when Clarke helps Lexa undress him down to his underwear - trying to take a shirt out of a sleepy three year old when they’re not lying down is a struggle Clarke doesn’t need to repeat any time soon - so he can relax a little more before changing into fresh pajamas.

They stay in silence. Because Clarke knows she’s here only to make sure Aden is okay, that he’s well enough to sleep through the night and won’t need to be driven to the emergency room. Because she promised to keep her distance. And, for the first time since Clarke walked into her house, Lexa seems relieved, like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders, so she doesn’t even try to fill the silence.

It aches. Clarke tells herself this is more than she thought she’d get to have after the last time she saw Lexa, she pretends this moment is more than she needs. But she does that because she has to, not because it’s the truth.

She wants to push away from the counter and tuck a brown curl behind Lexa’s ear, soothing it until it stops falling to her eyes. She wants to tilt her chin up and tell her Aden is okay, that he’ll be okay and she’s a great mom, she’s doing great. She wants to settle one hand on the small of her back, leaning in gently as she pushes Aden’s hair away from his eyes, checks his fever.

She wants to offer comfort, that _hands on_ kind of comfort she prides herself in being actually good on.

But Clarke knows she doesn’t have the right to do that anymore.

There’s a knock on the door and Anya puts her head inside, letting the cold air in, mixing with the steam in swirly patterns. “How is he?”

Lexa has her face pressed on his hair, as if breathing him in will keep her from losing her bearings, and presses a kiss to his temple before turning to Anya, speaking softly so Aden doesn’t wake up, “Better. He can breathe easier now. Cough is almost gone.”

“Good,” Anya smiles, clearly relieved, and looks at her godson with such love Clarke can’t help but think how good it looks on her. For once, she doesn’t look ready to murder someone with her pinky and if anyone could bring that on Anya, it’d be Aden. Then she turns to Clarke, her face turning serious again, “Um, Raven told me to pick up five pizzas and bring to your place. Should I be worried?”

 _Five_ pizzas is a bit of an overkill, considering they’re a total of six people now, but Clarke just shakes her head, “No, it’s just- I had some people from work over,” Clarke keeps her eyes on Anya, but she can feel Lexa’s gaze burning a hole in her head, “I said I’d be right back with pizza when I left, so… yeah.”

It’s a silly way to finish her sentence, but Clarke really didn’t expect Raven to _call Anya and ask for pizzas_. Anya holds her eyes for a moment longer and looks at Lexa, then back at Clarke, “Okay. Since you have all under control here, I’ll go deliver pizza. I guess.”

Anya leaves with a pout that Clarke really hopes Raven knows how to fix, and soon the bathroom is warm again. Uncomfortably warm. Clarke feels her heart hammering in her chest, pounding painfully against her ribcage, because Lexa is going to say something. Because of course she will. Clarke folds her arms on her chest, watching the gears working inside of Lexa’s head, waiting for whatever she’s got coming.

The gears inside her own head are working like crazy, trying to think of something - anything, any-fucking-thing - to say before Lexa makes it a bigger deal than it is.

Because it’s not a big deal.

Clarke would drop everything for Lexa if she asked, but that’s hardly the point here.

The moment that thought crosses her mind, Clarke feels her stomach churning and turning, threatening to spill its contents. Because the irony is too much, even for her - right now, Clarke feels like she’d move to Mars if Lexa wanted, but she couldn’t stay when Lexa asked her to.

She’s a hypocrite - a selfish, boneless hypocrite. But she’ll think - _drink_ \- about it later.

“Where do you keep his pajamas? A few more minutes here and he’ll be able to sleep through the night,” Clarke says the first thing that comes to mind, anything that will get her out of there and give her a moment to breathe and put her self loathing to the side for a few more hours, as long as Lexa needs her.

Lexa doesn’t answer her. She takes a deep breath in, the steamy air getting stuck in her throat, turning it into a shaky gasp that even Clarke can make out, “You left your friends alone to come here?”

“You needed me.” The words slip her lips before she thinks them through. Her jaw tingles with the panic that seems to rise in her chest, and she tries to amend, “I mean, Aden. Aden needed me.” Clarke feels the words stumbling inside her mouth, coming out before she can shove them back inside.

Hoisting Aden up in her arms, Lexa takes a moment before she answers. When she does, her voice is almost even, just falling short, “You could have said you were busy. I would have understood.”

Yes, she would have understood, maybe she’d be glad for it. Lexa didn’t want Clarke to come over in the first place, but neither mention it, they just pretend for a little longer.

Clarke shrugs, “They’ll all grown ups. They can handle themselves alone for a few hours while I check on a sick child.” Lexa stares at her for a long time, until it becomes painful for Clarke to hold her gaze, then she simply nods. Clarke feels like she said the wrong thing at the wrong time, feels like she should have said more, or said less, or done _something else_. But she swallows past the growing lump in her throat and asks, “So, his pajamas?”

“Um, down the hallway, second door to your left. Bottom drawer,” Lexa says in a haze and Clarke nods, making a mental note as she grabs the handle - because she’s so shaken just by being near Lexa that she’s pretty sure she’ll forget what she even walked out to do.

Lexa stops her before she can even open the door, a gentle hand grabbing the inside of her elbow, keeping her from leaving, making it hard to breathe. Clarke feels her stomach rolling and dropping, bursting open for butterflies to come alive - Lexa is touching her.

She can’t quite pinpoint when she became as weak as she is right now, begging her legs to not give out on her simply because the woman she’s been ridiculously pining over for the last few years is reaching out to her.

Clarke glances down at Lexa’s hand, taking in the way it rests in the crook of her arm to make sure it’s not her mind playing tricks on her, and then looks back at Lexa. “Thank you,” her voice is soft as her touch and Clarke puts her hand on top of Lexa’s, giving it a gentle squeeze before she can stop herself.

How she manages to muster a smile and keep her voice steady will always be a mystery to her. “Anytime you need.”


	5. hushed tones and feverish skin — part two

It’s not until she follows Lexa’s instructions and finds herself in Aden’s room that Clarke realizes her heart is trying to pound its way out of her chest, the spot on her arm where Lexa touched her tingling.

She’s sure that, if she touches her own skin, it’ll be burning up, as feverish as Aden’s.

It feels like her whole body came alive when Lexa touched her, even if just for a moment, even if just to stop Clarke from leaving the bathroom before she found the courage to thank her. Every nerve around that patch of skin seems to be alight, almost as if her very soul decided it was done hiding in the darkness she shielded herself with and burst into flames to create light.

Clarke takes a moment to look at the room decor, pacing her breathing to calm her aching heart.

It’s all white and soft greys, from wallpaper to the the rug with the fun pattern that could be used as a race track. The toddler bed is tucked to the side, with quite a few throw pillows, varying in sizes and shapes, going from a square fluffy one with a zebra pattern to one shaped like an actual zebra. There’s a teepee in a corner, with wooden toys all around it, a few books stacked inside it. A few other books are on a shelf on the ground. There’s a hamper with a panda face stamped on it. A place to tuck shoes in. Wall decor in the same tones of light grey and black.

It’s soft and elegant, like Lexa.

That touch meant nothing, Clarke knows that - it was a mother being thankful to see her son is breathing easy again, that she can breathe easy as well. But it’s an olive branch that Clarke will hold on to with everything she’s got.

Clarke walks to the chest, stepping around a tower made out of wooden blocks and a half dismantled train set, and opens the bottom drawer, picking out the softest pajamas she can find - a grey pants and long sleeved set with red cuffs, firetrucks printed all over it.

When she makes it back to the bathroom, walking in without bothering to knock, Lexa has Aden standing on the closed toilet lid, dabbing a towel all over his tiny body. His hair still sticks to his forehead, the rings under his drooping eyes are deeper than before, and he’s pretty weak, leaning heavily on Lexa to keep his balance. But he’s no longer whistling like a boiling kettle whenever he breathes and he’s somewhat keeping a conversation with Lexa - all signs that the steam did help.

“Hey, bud,” Clarke smiles at him and even  _ she _ feels like she breathes a little bit easier when Aden plops his head on Lexa’s shoulder and smiles back at her, “How you feeling?”

“Tired,” he mumbles the word out and Clarke walks closer to him, holding his jammies, not sure if she should hand them to Lexa or help her get them on, “It’s so pink.”

It takes a moment for Clarke to process what he said, mid cough and against his mom’s shirt, but she brings her hair all over one shoulder as he reaches out. Aden takes a tiny step to her and Clarke hands Lexa his clothes right before he squishes a fistful of her hair in his hand. She lets him play with it - running his fingers through the tips, patting it gently, leaning his cheek against is - as she keeps a hand on his hips to support him and Lexa painstakingly puts his pajamas on.

After brushing Aden’s teeth less than halfheartedly, giving up the moment he starts complaining, Lexa carries him to his bedroom and Clarke goes to the opposite direction. She could leave. Aden is better now and it’s probable that he’ll sleep through the night, so she could leave - and maybe she should.

But Clarke decides to wait until he’s sound asleep and hurries downstairs to get his fever medicine, snatches the thermometer as well so they can check how bad his fever is. She does the math in her head, figuring out what meds they could give him if he was still feverish - he’s due for another Ibuprofen dose, but maybe that Paracetamol tea could help with his coughing as well.

Something flutters within her chest as she climbs the stairs two steps at a time, but it’s gone before she can name it. Which is good. Now is not the time for her to be having any feelings at all. She pushes it down, and focuses on Aden - she’s decidedly less worried after knowing the steam helped, but he’s still not out of the woods and he still needs to see a doctor.

Clarke stops right outside his door, leaning in just enough for her to glimpse at the scene - Lexa is curled around Aden, one arm over his head, brushing her fingers through sand-blond hair, the other drapped over his chest, heating it up with her palm. The light is low, just enough for everything to shine with a golden glow, to be suspended as in a make believe scene.

For a moment, she stays there, basking in the warmth that comes from something other than the wall lamp. Lexa speaks to him in a soft voice, lulling him to sleep with a story about a brave prince conquering the evil that plagued the land. His lids are heavy and he doesn’t fight the sleepiness that washes over him, his breathing evening out faster than Clarke has ever seen.

Then she clears her throat, making just enough noise so she doesn’t scare Lexa, and gets in, gesturing for all the things she has in her grasp. Lexa nods and presses a kiss on Aden’s sweaty forehead, giving Clarke some space to all but crawl in bed with them.

They move as if they’ve done this a hundred times.

Clarke hands Lexa the meds, leaning in to curl Aden’s hair around his eat and put the thermometer in. Then she leans to the side and holds the thermometer in place so Lexa can pinch his lips open, put the Ibuprofen drops right into his tongue, watch him swallow it in his sleep without protesting. 

When the thermometer beeps and Clarke brings it closer for them both to read it, they let out a relieved sigh almost in sync - 99ºF and well enough to wait until 8am, when his doctor agreed to see him.

Allowing herself to watch the rise and fall of his little chest for a moment, Clarke lets her mind wander. And sure enough, right on the dot as always, guilt and regret threaten to swallow her whole.

Because ever since meeting Aden, Clarke can’t help but imagine what her life - their life, their little family - would be like if she and Lexa had worked out, if they had met in another life where she were braver, where she didn’t have so much baggage to carry around with her. Maybe she could have met Lexa somewhere else, in that unexpected way that soulmates always seem to manage, and they could have had a normal relationship. They could have had first dates and  _ then _ first kisses, could have gotten nervous over tentative touches, over proposing under the stars, over starting a family together. 

In another life, they could have been a normal, boring couple living normal, boring lives and loving each other every normal, boring day of their lives.

Clarke feels tears welling up in her eyes and blinks them away before she makes a fool of herself. She busies herself for a moment with putting the thermometer away and tucking the meds on the night stand beside his bed.

Then she turns to Lexa, who looks worried beyond reason, drained of all emotional energy, closer to tears than Clarke herself feels.

“Hey,” Clarke calls in a whisper, her voice soft but cracking halfway through the word. She swallows past the fear in her chest, braces herself for the rejection that is sure to come, “I’ll watch over him, if you want to go take a shower and get something to eat.” Clarke does a general, awkward gesture that more or less points to the weird stain on Lexa’s shirt -  _ way to go, Griffin. _

Lexa holds her gaze for a moment before turning to look at her son, breathing easy in his sleep, “You don’t have to, Clarke.”

“I know,” she says, because she does know - she could have left a while ago, but leaving Lexa feels almost unbearable, “But I also know you won’t do any of that, if it means leaving him alone.” Clarke says with more confidence than she feels because she doesn’t  _ know  _ any of that, she’s mostly guessing based on what Lexa is giving her. “Go. I’ll call if he wakes up.”

If Clarke is wriggling her hands together with almost enough force to break a bone, neither comment on it. The silence is thick and the implications of what Clarke is asking hover heavy over their head - it’d be like saying she trusts her, even after all this time.

Lexa looks at Clarke, searching her face for something, then back at Aden. He looks peaceful, way better than he was when Clarke got here, and Lexa brushes his hair back again, feels his forehead, and nods once. “I’ll be quick.”

Pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead, Lexa leaves the room and Clarke can vaguely hear her fumbling with something a door over - probably her room, but she doesn’t allow her thoughts to go there. Soon after, the soft sound of running water fills the silence - Clarke really,  _ really _ cannot allow her thoughts to go there.

Aden is sound asleep, and she watches him for a moment. He’s a beautiful little boy, sweaty hair and all. If Clarke didn’t know he was adopted, she could swear he is all Lexa - his big green eyes and brown hair that looks almost sandy blond, if you look at it in the right light; and it goes past that, well into the way he carries himself, how he speaks whenever he thinks he’s right, the way he jolts his bottom lip forward just enough for no one to deny him anything.

Taking a deep breath, Clarke looks around, searching for something to keep her mind busy and her thoughts under control. She walks across the room and crouches to look at the tiny private library Aden has. There’s a little of everything in there, from those rubbery books that babies can use to chew on as much as to read to a fancy illustrated version of Harry Potter, stacked nicely and proud on top of everything else. She goes to reach for the first book when she catches sight of something else.

It takes her back to winter afternoons, curled up in the couch with her dad and five stuffed animals - she’d cuddle one of them and make her dad line up the other four, for them to listen to the story as he read it out loud to her. She can almost smell the hot cocoa with cinnamon and feel the wool socks wrapped around her hands, because they were always cold and she never liked gloves.

Clarke plucks it from the shelf and gives herself a moment to appreciate the cover - The Velveteen Rabbit, in a gorgeous edition, all soft brown and off white, with a splash of red every now and then. She runs her fingertips over the title and walks over to the bed again, settling beside Aden, opening up in the first page.

_ “There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen _ ,” Clarke more murmurs than say out loud, keeping her voice gentle and almost sleepy, trying her hardest not to wake up Aden.

Aden huffs in his sleep and throws both his arms over his head, turning it slightly to the direction of her voice. His little pout is the sweetest thing Clarke has seen in a while and she could stay in this moment forever.

She keeps reading it in the soft orange light that comes from his wall lamp, tracing the drawings in each page, soaking each trace and each splotch of color.

Clarke thinks back to her days in art school, when she was still young and her dad was still alive, how she dreamed about one day being able to illustrate children’s books - that’s what she wanted to do before her life got away from her, before she got away from herself.

It was the kind of dream that comes with no knowing what the world has in store, but she’s not bitter about having to give it up. But at the end of the day, Clarke can find herself glad that things didn’t go the way she wanted them to. Because she loves what she does, she really, truly does - watching kids find out they can do more than just follow order in school, watching them finding their own inner voices is more gratifying than she thought it could be.

Between teaching and still finding time to work on her own art, Clarke is happy with where she is. Professionally, at least. But looking at the drawings and the gentle words that go along them make her long for something she never had.

She glances at Aden as she turns the page, and pulls the covers up to his chest - he’s a cover kicker, no wonder almost all his pajamas are long sleeved sets. “ _ 'It doesn’t happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become’ _ , Clarke reads the next sentence and something makes her choke up. The Skin Horse is telling the Velveteen Rabbit how he can become real, and something in that is a painful metaphor for Clarke - something she refused to believe for quite some time, something she still struggles with. “ _ ‘It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges' _ ”

For Clarke, that’s the hardest part.  _ It takes a long time _ . She’s never been one to have patience, and knowing it’d take a long time to become who she wanted to be was ridiculously hard to accept.  _ It takes a long time and it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily _ . Clarke knows she can endure a lot, she  _ has _ endured a lot, so no, she doesn’t break easily. But she has been broken down and brought to tears more times than she can count, and that’s the exact thing that made her grow sharp edges.

There’s a small knock that plucks Clarke from her own thoughts and she turns around, her heart vibrating within her chest. She finds Lexa leaning against the door, her arms wrapped around her middle, a soft smile in her lips. 

Her hair is thrown over one shoulder, falling in gentle curls, and she’s dressed in yoga pants and a tank top, a cardigan thrown over it - it’s just comfortable enough for her to spend the night beside her son but still be able to rush to the emergency room if needed be.

But what catches Clarke’s eyes is the smile. 

Because Lexa is looking at  _ her _ and  _ smiling _ .

Clarke finds herself scurrying up to her feet, like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t, and closes the book, keeping it firm in her grasp, “I was reading to him.” She gestures the book up, to make her point.

Lexa nods, walking inside and towards her, “Yeah, I saw you.”

“He hasn’t woken up but I thought maybe-” It takes a moment for Clarke to understand what Lexa meant and she pauses mid sentence, going another direction, “Wait. How long have you been at the door?”

“Since a little before you pulled his covers up,” Lexa’s smile grows as she stands two feet away and Clarke has to focus on her breathing, willing it to quiet down, praying Lexa can’t hear her heartbeat. Because Lexa is talking to her and  _ still smiling _ . Then she grabs the book, looking at the cover before opening it to the part where Clarke has stopped, “It’s one of his favorites.”

“Mine too. My dad used to read it to me when I was little,” Clarke says before she can catch herself. She blames the low light and the stress melting away, all the months of agony washing over and away when Lexa smiled at her. Lexa nods, as if she’s unsure of how to respond to Clarke sharing something that is out of bounds for them. Clarke clears her throat, picking up the conversation seamlessly, “Have you eaten? You were super quick, I barely got to the second chapter.”

“No, I just showered,” Lexa brushes it off, leaning down to feel Aden - who’s blissfully cool, Clarke made sure to check, “I don’t want to be far from him and I’m not hungry, anyway.”

“Is it okay if I go to the kitchen and make something for you? Maybe some tea to help you wind down?” Clarke watches as a curl fall over Lexa’s other shoulder and before she realizes what the hell she’s doing, she reaches out, tuck it behind her ear, make sure it stays. Then Lexa looks at her and Clarke takes her hand away like she’s been burned, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

Lexa doesn’t let her finish her apology, “Tea sounds nice. Thank you.”

Leaving the room before Lexa has the chance to change her mind, Clarke barely makes it down the stairs before she has to pause to gather herself, gripping the bannister with so much force her knuckles shine white.  _ What the hell did she just do _ ?

With a few deep breaths and a few moments struggling with how much she wants to bolt until they both forget that she  _ tucked Lexa’s hair behind her ear _ like a fucking idiot, Clarke forces her legs to more towards the kitchen.

Clarke grabs the kettle, fills it with enough water for two cups of tea, puts it back on the stove, turns the burner on - going through every little step as slowly and mindfully as possible calms her mind, quiets it enough that she almost finds it within herself to stop worrying about how much damaged she just caused.

It seems that she always manages to scare Lexa away the moment she takes one step closer.

As she waits for the water to come to a boil, Clarke walks around the kitchen, opening a few cupboards and looking for everything she needs, not even pretending she’s not taking everything in with a child-like curiosity, leaning every tiny detail that make Lexa,  _ Lexa _ .

The spices on the cupboard above the stove are organized in little bottles with identical labels, the type that mimics chalkboard, and each name written in a neat handwriting. Rosemary, turmeric, paprika, coriander, cinnamon, thyme - for someone who barely knew how to make plain rice, Lexa sure does like her spices now.

The thought alone makes her smile.

Clarke finds most what she needs in the cupboard beside it - chamomile tea, honey and bread. She knows very well she could use some soothing chamomile to calm her fried nerves, so she can only imagine how much Lexa would benefit from it. And the bread, well- Lexa needs to get something in her stomach if she’s going to stay awake the entire night watching over Aden. 

And Clarke knows she will. She doesn’t need to have known Lexa before, the worry in her green eyes is enough for Clarke to know for a fact she won’t be getting much sleep tonight.

Mugs are in the cupboard above the sink and Clarke can’t say she’s surprised when she finds an array of black, white and grey mugs. What amuses her is to see that they rest side by side to a few colorful ones, with designs going from rainbow stripes to Disney characters - Aden’s mugs, probably. She picks up the rainbow one for Lexa and one with a tiny ceramic cow sitting like a dog on the bottom for herself.

Chuckling to herself as she sets the tea bags inside each mug, Clarke pours the hot water inside and moved the tea bags a little, leaving them there to simmer while she works on the bread.

She grabs a banana from the fruit bowl on the kitchen island and sets it beside the bread and honey. Now she needs peanut butter - and Lexa must have peanut butter, because no house is a home without peanut butter. 

In the cupboard beside the stove, Clarke finds a neat row of elbow macaroni boxes, heavy cream and a few of those packaged cheese that come with three different kinds. It takes a moment for Clarke to piece it together that Lexa probably keeps it all where Aden can reach for him to help her out when they’re making mac and cheese. Because of course Lexa wouldn’t give her kid the boxed kind.

It makes her smile, to think about a tiny Aden walking around with a box almost as tall as he is, sitting on the counter babbling away as they wait for the water to boil, pouring the cheese in the cooked pasta and smiling proudly to himself, even if half of it doesn’t land in the pot.

Clarke finds peanut butter in the cupboard beside it and she’s well aware she’s gone through more than half of Lexa’s kitchen, but she still can’t find it within herself to feel guilty - not when every little thing she finds makes her love Lexa a little bit more, makes it obvious how much Lexa herself changed in these past six years, makes her chest ache with everything she can’t say.

One glance at their tea tells her it’s almost ready, so she sets out to make the open sandwich for Lexa - bread, peanut butter, sliced bananas and a drizzle of honey on top. It’s become a staple in her own house, because watching middle schoolers eating PB&J sandwiches almost every day will give you a goddamn craving. And Clarke is enough of an adult to convince herself that adding bananas to it turns it into a healthy alternative.

She opens the cupboard above the counter to grab a plate and settles it down before shutting the door back closed - but before she does, something catches her eye.

On the shelf above the plates, tucked neatly beside a fancy coffee maker that doesn’t seem to get much use, there’s a cookbook - a worn out cookbook with tape holding the spine together, flour stuck to the glue, bulky with all the things that were added to it.

A cookbook that looks so familiar it makes a knot form in Clarke’s throat, pressing her windpipe, making her struggle to breathe.

Forgetting what she’s supposed to be doing for a moment, Clarke plucks it from the cupboard and holds it for a moment, letting the weight of it on her hands make it real, before she puts it on the counter.

Her hands shake too much for her to trust herself with holding it without dropping.

Because this is  _ her _ cookbook.

She runs the pads of her fingers over the front cover - it’s fraying on the edges and the colors are faded, but it’s the same cookbook Clarke used for years before she learned her favorite recipes by heart, the same cookbook Clarke gave Lexa for Christmas back when she thought they could make it.

She can’t believe Lexa kept it, can’t believe she  _ used it _ , added more things to it, loved it as much as Clarke did. 

Holding her breath, almost scared that any brusque movement will make the entire book vanish from existence, Clarke flips it open on the first page - her name is still there, along with the date she got it. Her dad used to make her do that with all her new books - “ _ so you can remember who you were when you got it _ ” - and the habit never died. She’s never been more glad about that.

Clarke thumbs through the pages in pure awe.

Some recipes are the way she left them, blank and untethered or scribbled over a few ingredients with extra notes on the side. Some have Lexa’s own handwriting, neat and tiny, more often than not trading one ingredient for something else healthier or an alternative she liked better. And some- not many, but some have both their notes, side by side, complementing each other until the recipe had been perfected. 

If her heart strings pull painfully at the sight of her loopy  _ Y’s _ sitting beside Lexa’s tilted  _ L’s _ , Clarke lets it be.

She’s been keeping the reins so tight on her emotions ever since she walked back in Lexa’s life, that she allows them to roam free for just one moment, just as long as she’s alone in this kitchen that somehow feels a little bit like hers now, just a little longer before she pulls it all back and shoves it deep down.

There are paper clips lining the top part, something Clarke didn’t do when she had this book - she’d tape the new recipes on the back, which is half the reason the covers are falling to begin with. She traces all the paper clips before opening on the first one, finding a handwritten recipe for homemade waffles with crayon scribbles all over it - the image that paints itself in her mind is nothing short of precious, with Lexa copying it down from somewhere else with Aden on her lap, insisting on helping his mommy do her work.

On the side, colorful flags run down the whole book and Clarke opens one at random, landing on a recipe for oatmeal and raisins, with “ _ Aden’s favorite _ ” and a little heart beside it written with bright red Sharpie.

This book is loved, Clarke can tell that much.

For a moment, she stands there, dumbfounded and ridiculously in love with a life she didn’t get to have. Because her mind flies far from her and concocts images of Lexa burning her first soup and ruining more cakes than she cares to count, Lexa following recipes to a dot and being very proud of herself when she got a eggplant lasagna to be actually edible, Lexa panicking over not knowing how to make food for her infant son and cooking overnight until she found something she could do, Lexa perfecting her son’s favorite dishes and creating things from scratch.

It stings to know she never got to see Lexa, who had a reputation for burning down houses whenever she tried to cook, growing into someone who tinkers recipes and bakes cookies for her son.

But somewhere inside her treacherous heart, a little spark of hope comes to life.

Because maybe - and Clarke knows this is a far fetched  _ maybe  _ in the best of scenarios - Lexa doesn’t resent her so much, doesn’t want her to leave and never show her face again, didn’t spend the last six years hating her guts.

Maybe, just  _ maybe _ , Lexa has it in her to forgive her.

Her hands are shaking so badly Clarke almost knocks half the plates down as she puts the cookbook back in place. But how could she have steady hands when Lexa kept the gift she gave her, treasured it enough to add to it, to turn it into something she’ll pass along to her son and her grandkids? How could she keep her whole body from trembling when she finds herself hoping.

Well, no wonder she wasn’t cut to be a doctor.

With a deep, steadying breath, Clarke forces herself to focus on making the sandwich and calming herself down so she has a shot of getting upstairs without spilling anything. She spreads the peanut butter on two slices of bread, half wishing she could have toasted them, cuts the banana into thin slices and arranges them into neat rows on the peanut butter, drizzles some honey on top of it. 

She can’t help but wonder if Lexa feels the same sense of peace that she does when she’s cooking.

For the first time in quite a while, Clarke believe that someday she’ll be able to ask Lexa something as simple and domestic as that and get an honest answer.

Going up the stairs with two mugs filled to the brim with piping hot tea in one hand, barely keeping them from spilling over as she holds tight around their handles, and a plate in the other is easier said than done. She goes up the stairs slowly, focusing so hard in not making a mess, that she forgets what she saw downstairs and what it all means - for the moment, for just this moment, until her brain is quiet again. 

She makes it to Aden’s bedroom door almost breaking a goddamn sweat - she might not know Lexa and who she is now, but it doesn’t take a genius, or more than a single look at her pristine living room, to know she wouldn’t be happy about having peanut butter on her carpet.

Before she realizes she’s shaking and grunting with the effort, Lexa is by her side, prying the mugs from her tight grip. Clarke feels the blood coming back to her fingertips as she hands Lexa the place and takes the little cow mug from Lexa’s hand, and can’t help her smile when Lexa stares at the plate with a disgusted glare - it doesn’t look as appetizing as it is and she can tell Lexa is more than a little skeptical.

“I hope you like peanut butter and bananas,” Clarke half whispers as they make their way inside, “It’s a new favorite of mine.”

“You didn’t have to make me anything, Clarke. But thank you,” Lexa says, sounding more sincere than Clarke had expected her to, and walks ahead until she’s sitting beside Aden on his toddler bed. She eyes it once before settling the plate on her knees as she pushes the hair from her son’s forehead, “I can’t say I’ve ever eaten it like this though.”

Lexa says the last sentence as an afterthought, like she’s not ready to let the conversation die just yet.

And Clarke grips to it with both hands, “It’s pretty much the grown up version of peanut butter and jelly,” she explains with a shrug, watching Aden’s chest rise and fall in a quiet fashion - his breathing seems easier, and Clarke feels her own doing the same, “How’s he doing?

“Much better,” the relief is almost palpable in Lexa’s voice and Clarke nods as she takes a tentative sip from her tea, still too hot for her taste, “His fever is almost all gone and he hasn’t coughed anymore.” Lexa looks at her for a moment, nodding towards the rocking chair now sitting beside the bed, “The chair is for you. If you want to stay a little.”

For a moment, Clarke forgets how to breathe, how to move, how to be a human being.

Then she nods and takes the few steps towards the rocking chair, holding on to her tea for dear life and praying for it to not spill over when she inevitably makes a fool of herself. She’s never been full of grace to begin with, and rocking chairs make her look less than dainty, and more like a sack of potato someone threw over their shoulder. It takes a little wiggling for her to find herself in a comfortable position, leaning forward in the chair instead of it dragging her back, and then she looks at Lexa.

Clarke thinks she sees Lexa smiling at her, but it’s gone before she can be sure - Lexa nibbles the toast, slowly taking a bite and chewing on it, trying to figure out if she loves it or hates it.

This is new.

It’s new and everything Clarke wanted for the last few months, few years. But it’s awfully scary and too delicate for her to trust herself around Lexa.

Before Clarke can find herself spiraling down in her own thoughts, Lexa lets out a noise. “Clarke, this is really good,” Lexa says and it’s a high praise coming from someone who doesn’t even have boxed mac and cheese in her cupboards, “Maybe you- I can make one for Aden tomorrow, if he’s feeling up for eating.”

Clarke catches the way Lexa slips and almost gives out more than she means to. It’s nothing more than the sheer relief of knowing her child is safe and sound, Clarke knows this. Lexa is exhausted and her defenses are coming down without her meaning them to. But it doesn’t keep Clarke from smiling to herself as Lexa turns her attention back to Aden.

Aden is sound asleep and Lexa keeps working on her toast, her bites growing bigger, and Clarke feels pretty proud of herself - it might not be the healthiest sandwich, but she’s getting food into Lexa.

They’re silent for a moment, Lexa watching Aden, Clarke watching Lexa.

In the quiet of the room, sipping her tea and letting its warmth seep into her, Clarke allows her thoughts to drift to the cupboard downstairs, to the shelf above the plates. She can’t help but wonder if Lexa will add this sandwich to her growing collection of extra recipes. Maybe she’ll write down the basics for it in a piece of paper and stick it in there somewhere for future reference, for when Aden refuses to eat his fruit. Maybe someday there’s going to be a “ _ Aden’s favorite _ ” scribbled down on the top of the recipe. Maybe it’ll become Lexa’s own comfort food.

It’s a long shot at best, but Clarke feels stupidly hopeful.

She looks down at her tea to hide her grin, watching a little ceramic cow breaking the surface of her tea with its little head, and looks up again. Lexa puts her now empty plate on the floor beside the bed and picks up her tea, taking a sip from it absentmindedly as Aden turns in his sleep.

Lexa is breathtaking.

With nothing but the hallway lamp throwing light on the room, Clarke feels safe enough to let herself take in everything she missed in these past few years.

Her hair is longer than Clarke is used to and, if she squints, she can almost remember what it feels like to run her hands through those curls, to play with the locks with the sun shining on both of them. Her eyes are still painfully green and carry the same intense stare, the one that makes Clarke weak in the knees for a multitude of reasons, but she can see the laughter lines Lexa wears proudly.

Time has passed, for the two of them, and Clarke knows she’ll never get those years back - they’ll always be six years they spent apart, years Lexa spent hating Clarke, years Clarke spent trying to make herself worthy of everything Lexa once offered her.

Time has passed, but Lexa’s jaw looks just as sharp and tempting, the left corner of her lip still tilts slightly higher than her right one when she smiles, she still brings out the same feelings she did.

“Clarke?  _ Clarke _ .” A pointed voice pulls her out of her reverie and heat crawls up her neck and cheeks - Lexa is staring at Clarke staring at her. She can’t tell how long she’s been staring at Lexa’s plump lips, but she puts her best poker face on and answers with a ‘uh?’, moving past the awkwardness with a grace she doesn’t feel, “I asked, where did you learn to care after children like that?”

“Oh,” Clarke straightens up in the rocking chair, trying to get her breathing to quiet down after watching Lexa’s lips quirking up in an amused smile, “I worked with the tiny ones for almost two years when I was getting my masters. I guess it’s the kind of thing you pick up.”

It’s all she says for now, not sure where to draw the line. But Clarke has so much she wants to share, so many stories she wants to tell Lexa - from the chubby six month olds she’d cuddle all the way through naptime without any guilt and the three year old who would draw her flowers every single day, to the scratches she’d come home wearing after watching over toddlers who had just turned towards the terrible twos and how fun it was to get vomit all over her shirt, poop on her hands and spit on her hair all before ten in the morning.

It’s weird to think Lexa no longer is the person who knows the most about her. 

But she wants her to be, she wants to tell Lexa everything - the good, the bad, the ugly, the inconsequential little anecdotes. They might have been together only a handful of days, a time too short for most people to cause any sort of lasting impression. But for that time, Clarke had opened up so much and so readily that it feels easy to fall back into the same pattern, almost like muscle memory.

“I thought-” Lexa blinks at her, trying to make sense of her words, “I thought you taught high schoolers.”

“I do, yeah. From the get go, I knew I wanted to work with teenagers.” Some days, Clarke wonders what the hell she was  _ thinking _ when she said that working with forty fourteen year olds would be a good idea. But then she sees how much her students grow in the span of a few weeks and how her heart seems to glow whenever one of them say they’ll pursue the arts - it makes it all worth it. “But I got a job at a daycare while I worked to get my master because- well, I needed to support myself.”

Clarke looks up to meet Lexa’s eyes and she can almost see the moment her words sink in and she draws the most obvious conclusion - Clarke had to take a job to support herself because she had stopped working as an escort, a short time after walking out on Lexa.

If that thought brings any bitterness to the back of Lexa’s throat and makes tears sting her eyes, Clarke can’t tell.

Biting her tongue to keep herself from saying more than she should and digging a hole she won’t come out of alive, Clarke wonders if Lexa is thinking that if she quit her job - the job she chose over  _ them _ \- so soon after they split up, why the hell couldn’t she have saved both of them the heartache and fought a little harder to make things work.

Clarke doesn’t have an answer for that.

Maybe one day, she will. But for now, everything seems to fall short.

“Anya never mentioned it,” Lexa says, steering the conversation away from dangerous territory and towards something that could just as well do some damage. But Clarke frowns at that - what should Anya have mentioned? does Lexa ask Anya about her? is there any part of Lexa that actually wants to know more about her than how fast she can leave her sight? Lexa sighs into her tea, taking a sip before adding, “She told me you’re an art teacher in the same school Raven does… something, but she never said anything about you working with small children.”

It surprises Clarke, to say the least.

Because she remember mentioning it to Raven, telling her about all the things that made her take a bathroom break and wonder if she had what it took to stay at her job. And she remembers Raven laughing so hard at her that Anya came downstairs to tell them very kindly to shut up because she was in the middle of a conference call.

She actually thought that this had been the argument that Anya had used to win Lexa over and convince her to allow Clarke to come over and check on Aden.

But she forces herself to move past it, crossing one leg over the other and losing her balance for a moment, her tea sloshing in her mug. She grips the rocking chair, wills it to stop, adjust her sitting, “Truth be told, Anya isn’t exactly rooting for us.”

“Rooting for  _ us _ ?” 

Lexa sounds as surprised as Clarke feels for saying that.

“I mean, uh- I just-” Clarke trips over her own words, trying to come up with a reasonable excuse - because she meant exactly that she said, no more, no less. It’s scary, because all it takes is one moment of distraction and she’s spilling over shit she shouldn’t, “I  _ mean _ -”

“It’s fine, Clarke,” Lexa cuts her before she makes a fool of herself, and takes a sip from her own tea to hide her smirk - she doesn’t do a very good job and it feels a lot more like teasing than a reproach, and Clarke doesn’t know how to tell her heart that it doesn’t mean a thing. “I too get the feeling Anya doesn’t want us to be friends.”  _ Friends _ . The word hurts, but Clarke knows she doesn’t have the right to ask anything else from Lexa, barely has the nerve to ask for this. Lexa’s eyes shine a little brighter under the low light and Clarke wants to take all the words she said this evening back, “But what you need to understand is that she was here with me when it all happened. She saw how you- how I was.”

It feels like a punch to the gut.

_ She saw how you left me, how you hurt me, how you stripped me from all my defenses only to hit me where it hurt the most. _

The words are there and Lexa may not say them, Clarke hears each of them nonetheless.

If this had happened two days ago - fuck, two  _ hours _ ago, Clarke would have jumped to the opportunity, would have tried to explain herself as best as she could, until Lexa understood what drove her to do what she did. But for the first time, she feels like there will be a better moment to address it all.

Besides, in this moment, she can barely remember her reasoning behind it all herself.

Clarke nods, because that’s all she has left to do. “She’s just being protective, I get it.”

“Even if she  _ did  _ send you right over my house twice now,” Lexa says in a teasing tone and Clarke feels half the weight she carried on her shoulders for so long being shattered on the ground. 

Lexa is trying.

It might be fleeting, it might all be gone tomorrow, but Lexa is extending an olive branch and Clarke will be damned if she doesn’t cling to it with all she’s got.

She shrugs. Anya can be a pain in the ass - and most days, she really, really is - but she’s done more to help Clarke with Lexa than she gets credit for. “With the stinky eye she gives me every single time she sees me and the more than occasional scolding, I can tell you she cares a lot about your wellbeing.” Clarke says, because it’s true and Lexa should know it. Her tone grows serious as she holds Lexa’s gaze, finishing her own line of thought, “And that no one will ever find my body, if I ever hurt you again.”

“Sounds like her.”

Without carrying the conversation any further, Lexa smiles and holds Clarke’s eyes for a moment - it’s the first real,  _ open _ smile Lexa gave her since, _ fuck _ , since half a decade ago.

It feels like someone is jump starting her heart the way they would do with a car. It skips a beat and pounds and hammers and it all but screams at Clarke ‘ _ did you see that? did you see that? she smiled, did you see that? her smile is so pretty and she smiled, did you fucking see that?’ _

Clarke takes a sip from her tea, hoping the chamomile will calm her heart, and settles into the silence. It’s not exactly comfortable or easy, but it’s not heavy either - it’s filled with unsaid words that aren’t ready to be said out loud and feelings that were too hurt not to seek some sort of revenge, it’s enough for now. 

These moments are precious and they’ve shared a lot tonight, one way or another, opened up more than either meant to. Some silence is good.

Aden coughs slightly and grunts halfway through it, shifting in his sleeping until he’s lying on his side. His arms are stretched in front of him and his cheek is smashed against the pillow in a way that makes him sport the cutest pout. Clarke can easily see why Raven is so easily manipulated by him - that pout and his long hair is a killer duo. 

Lexa places her now empty plate on the floor by her feet and places the mug on top of it, leaning over Aden to make sure he’s okay. Clarke can hear his breathing from where she’s sitting - it’s far from clear, but he should make it to morning without any trips to the emergency room - and Lexa frowns at it, feels his cheek and neck with the back of her hand to see if his fever is coming back.

It’s a surreal experience, to watch Lexa being a  _ mom _ . 

She’s simply making sure her son isn’t warm and yet, Clarke is in awe. Maybe it’s the low light, maybe it’s the softness of it all, but the way Lexa holds his tiny hand in hers, brushes her thumb over his limp palm, runs down her free hand down his back - it’s like peeking into something she’s not allowed to.

Clarke allows herself to lean back and enjoy the way Lexa’s eyebrows soften when she knows for a fact that Aden is okay, how a smile ghosts her lips when she brushes his hair back, the gentle kiss she presses to the back of his hand before sitting back up and grabbing her tea.

Motherhood changes people, Clarke knows that much.

But finding details here and there about how it changed Lexa makes Clarke ache, crave the time they lost, wish she had been there to see it all from the beginning. Because Lexa went from someone who could barely boil water without fucking it up to someone who makes macaroni and cheese from scratch and has favorite recipes, knows her son’s favorite ones.

“It’s amazing how much you can learn from these little humans,” the words roll out of her tongue before Clarke fully realizes she’s even thinking about it, let alone saying them.

It’s the truth - she’s learned so much, from how to change a diaper and deal with crankiness to how to feel deep, unrestrained love again, and that’s only with looking after other people’s children for six hours a day. She can only imagine how it must be to have her own little baby.

It’s the truth, but she hadn’t meant to disrupt Lexa. She seems to have been deep in thought, and Clarke’s words make her snap out of it, look up, try to find her bearings for a moment, “It really is. I grew so much with him. He showed me how strong I can be.”

Lexa looks away from Clarke before she can say anything, before she can fully process her words, and leans slightly forward to grab Aden’s small foot. It’s nothing but a connection between mother and son, and Clarke can’t keep herself from staring. It’s such a small gesture that Clarke isn’t ready for the way her chest swells as she watches the way Lexa runs her thumb over what’s probably his tiny toes.

There’s a lull in their conversation where both of them sip their tea, Lexa looking at her son and Clarke pretending not to steal glances at this precious scene.

Lexa pauses for , looking like she’s wondering if she should say something else or leave it be. After another sip to her tea and a soft squeeze to Aden’s foot, she turns to Clarke. “He got a really bad reaction from his vaccines when he was two months old. He was this tiny little thing and they gave him all six vaccines at once and- it broke my heart, to see him crying like that,” Lexa says with a tiny voice, barely loud enough for her to hear, and Clarke wonders if she’s ever told this story before, “We got home and I did everything they told me to, but he got bumps all over his legs and a really bad fever. It wasn’t high, but it lasted all night and I- I was completely lost.”

It takes a moment for Clarke to realize she’s holding her breath.

There’s something in the air, something in between electricity and hope, and Clarke feels like it’ll all crumble the moment she breathes. She pays attention to every syllable, clings to every word. Lexa is sharing something deeply personal with her, a story from her early days with Aden, and it fills Clarke with more hope than she dared to have all this time.

“He cried in,  _ god _ , heart-wrenching sobs all night and I cried with him. He was fine by morning, but it was the first time I felt like I couldn’t do this alone,” Lexa looks to the tea in between her hands and wraps her palms tighter around her mug, taking a leap Clarke couldn’t dream she would, “Sometimes I still feel like that. Like maybe I should have waited a little longer and it’s insane to think I can do this alone.”

Her voice, as tiny as it is, echoes in the room.

This self doubt doesn’t seem to be something new, but it doesn’t seem to be something Lexa talks often either. Clarke can see in the slight tremble of her lips and how her hands grip the mug just that much harder that it’s something she keeps hidden deep down.

Setting her now lukewarm tea on the floor, Clarke rocks her chair forward and rests her elbows on her knees, “You’re not alone, Lexa.” Lexa looks up and meets her eyes - there’s a deep vulnerability in them, something she wouldn’t show in broad daylight, “You have Anya and Raven, you have your mom, you have your brother. Even if he doesn’t live in the same city as you, I’m sure Lincoln is just one phone call away from some parenting advice.” Clarke takes a shot in her comforting, not knowing if half of what she’s saying is still true.

Some of it seems to sink into Lexa as she takes a deep breath, her nail worrying the rim of her mug.

“I guess. But it is not the same as having someone to discuss day to day worries with,” Lexa swallows thickly and pauses for a moment, reaching down to set her mug on top of her plate. She wipes her palms on her pants as she talks, “And I don’t mean the late night feedings, I handled that just fine. I mean-” Lexa looks at her sleeping son, “is he okay? Should I worry about the words he say wrong, and how math doesn’t come easy to him? Do I need to enroll him in some extra activities or less? Does he have enough friends? Is he happy? That’s not the sort of thing you can talk to someone who lives in another country.”

Clarke reaches over and tips Lexa’s chin towards her, holds it in place until their eyes meet, “You’re doing fine, Lexa. And I’m not just saying this, I mean it.” Clarke lets go of her chin, and if there are tears pooling in her green eyes, neither say anything, “Aden is an incredible little guy, he’s  _ you _ through and through. Each kid develops in their own time, but you can take him to a speech therapist, if it eases your mind. It’s normal to worry about your child, but as long as you love him with all you’ve got, he’ll be fine. You’re doing a good job with him.”

Her words are pointed, as though she’s trying to physically get them through Lexa’s head.

As much as her chest blooms with cheer happiness at Lexa sharing these things with her, Clarke aches for her. She aches because Lexa is an incredible mom and doesn’t have anyone to reassure her of this, to kiss her temple and whisper how good she is to Aden, to hold her hand in times like this and make sure she doesn’t doubt for one second that her love for her son is enough.

Clarke knows what bad parenting looks like, and it’s not this.

Nodding halfheartedly, Lexa bites her lips, “I wish-” she pauses, blinks at Clarke as if she’s only now realizing how close they are and how much she’s shared already, and looks back to Aden, “I wish I had more time to be with him. Sometimes, I want to quit my job and become a stay at home mom, bake cookies for the school sale and take him to soccer practice with orange slices. So I can be there every step of the way and he doesn’t feel like I chose work over him.”

It takes Clarke aback, because this -  _ this _ , right here - is what Aden did to Lexa, is proof of just how much she changed for him, because of him, thanks to him.

Six years ago, Lexa would never choose someone else over her job. Clarke remembers her putting it in plain terms that work came first. She might’ve been able to do some adjusts - if they had worked out, if they had given it a shot, Lexa would be running their office in New York - but work came first.

That memory floods Clarke with the need to make Lexa understand how much of a  _ mom _ she’s become, even if she herself can’t see it. 

Reaching over, Clarke clasps Lexa’s hand in hers, squeezing it gently - it’s muscle memory from a time she could do this, but she powers through her doubts as Lexa stares at their joined hands and meets her gaze, “Listen to me. Being a working single mom doesn’t mean you’re not a great mom. You put him first, you said so yourself. His well being, his happiness comes before anything else. You’re tired and overwhelmed with worry, but come morning you’ll see that what you’re doing is the bravest thing anyone could do.”

Lexa turns her hand in Clarke’s until their palms are together, pressing them together - it feels like a balm to Clarke’s soul. “What if he feels like I robbed him of something he should have had? Two parents, a normal family, knowing whose tummy he came from.”

It’s a vulnerable moment, a glimpse at what they could have been. Lexa’s voice is so small Clarke can only hear because she’s  _ that _ close to her, and it doesn’t take much to see this is a worry that comes from deep within.

All Clarke wants to do is scoop Lexa in a hug, wrap her arms around her small frame and whisper everything she needs to hear in between kisses until she believes her. But this isn’t the time - not yet.

“Lex,” the nickname slips from Clarke before she can keep herself in check, “You’ll cross that bridge when it comes to it.  _ If _ it comes to it,” her voice is gentle and reassuring as she flicks the pad of her thumb over Lexa’s pulse and scoots closer, “He’s incredibly blessed to have you as his mom, and he’ll know it. Any child would be lucky to have you as their mom.”

Lexa snaps her eyes up, searching for something in Clarke’s blue ones, determined to find it, and Clarke feels molten lead pooling in her stomach, burning her insides just that little bit more the longer Lexa holds her gaze.

It takes her a moment to fully grasp the memory pulling at the back of her mind - the words ring back to what Lexa told  _ her _ all those years ago, when Lexa held a crying Clarke in her arms and tried to pull her out of the sea of self loathing she was drowning in. Clarke didn’t believe those words back then and still can’t believe them now, not when all evidence points to the contrary. But it says a lot if Lexa felt half as sure as Clarke does right now.

The understanding sinks into Clarke slowly, then all at once. 

Lexa remembers the same thing, probably remembers how frustrating it is when you can’t make the person you love see themselves in the same like you do, and Clarke squeezes her hand once more, locking their eyes together.

Something in her green eyes - maybe it’s the low light making them a deeper green, maybe it’s the way there’s a glint to them that seem brand new and familiar at once - makes Clarke lean in a fraction closer. 

All the memories she’s tried to push down in these past months come rushing back to her, all the kisses she shared, all the touches she never truly treasured enough. Clarke can smell soap in Lexa’s skin, can feel her breath hitting her cheek, the warmth from her body clinging to hers. If she focuses, she can almost remember what Lexa’s lips feel like pressed against hers, the same lips that open slightly as she stares at Clarke’s.

It’s take but a tilt forward for their lips to meet.

Her heart is trying to hammer its way out of her body, in such a wild way Clarke is sure Lexa can see it beating through her shit, and her very soul is pleading her to do it, to take a chance, even if the tiny part of her brain that still functions is telling her this is an awful idea.

Clarke holds her breath when Lexa leans in and their noses brush against one another-

A barking cough erupts from beside them, loud and sudden, and they both spring apart. Aden whines through this cough, calling out  _ “mommy _ ” in three syllables, and Lexa turns to him, reaching out to help him up so he can ride away the cough. She’s by his side before Clarke can find a way to quiet her heart, and she can’t do much but once again soak in how natural Lexa is at being a mom.

Clarke rocks back in her chair, her limbs turned to jello, and watches as Lexa rubs Aden’s back until he can breathe easily again and gets him his water from his nightstand - it’s clearly old, but he gulps it happily. 

They almost kissed.

Even the thought of it brings her heart back to a staccato. There’s quite a few things both can blame this slip on - the low light, the hushed tones, the adrenaline burning down as their conversation got a little too deep. They were both caught up in the moment, but Clarke tries to convince herself that once reality sinks in and the morning light breaks through the haze, Lexa will bounce right back to not wanting to see her.

It’s hard to believe in it when the image of Lexa standing so close to her, lips parted and eyes half closed, leaning in to meet her lips is burned on her eyelids.

Once Aden is finished drinking his water and hands his cup back with a small thanks, Lexa asks if he’s better. He barely nods as he falls back to his pillow, pulling his mom’s hand down with him and snuggling it to his chest.

Changing her position so she’s sitting next to his head, Lexa strokes his hair and hums a little lullaby to him as Clarke finds it within herself to get up and grab both their mugs, preparing herself to leave. She isn’t quite ready to go home yet, because she knows the moment she leaves and the lights turn on, the spell will be broken and they’ll be back to how they are.

But Aden is falling asleep and Lexa doesn’t need to worry about anything other than her son right now.

“I should go home,” Clarke whispers before Lexa can say anything or bring up their almost kiss, “You  _ both _ could use some rest. You should still take him to the doctor in the morning to check it, but he should be fine.”

Lexa nods, once. The wall she let down only a few moments ago is struggling to come back up, her eyes softer than it’s been in a long while when she meet Clarke’s. “Thank you, again. For coming over when I- when Aden needed you.”

Clarke can’t help the warmth that spreads over her and makes every inch of her tingle - if Lexa is having trouble building her walls, it means there’s a goddamn chance in hell they might still make it. “Anytime you need. I mean it.”

They bid their goodbyes, whispered into the room in hopes Aden wouldn’t wake up and sleep through the night, and if the small smile Lexa gives her makes Clarke’s heart roar again, she lets it.


	6. making art and finding home again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has it really been almost three whole months since I last updated? Life has been brutal lately, but I hope this almost 19k word chapter filled to the brim with sweet moments make up for all the wait! 
> 
> And huge thank you to all of you who have been patient with me, left kudos and comments here, came over on Tumblr to chat. I love each and every interaction with you guys, you all leave me speechless time and time again with all the support. :')

It’s been easier to sleep lately.

Thinking back, Clarke realizes she’s always had trouble sleeping, from the nightmares about mythological monsters she had to deal with in her childhood to the very real monsters made out of flesh and bones she’d see every time she closed her eyes during her early days as an escort - and lately, the deep rooted fear that came with the certainty of having screwed up the only good thing in her life.

Sleep had never come easy to her. She would be able to fit naps in between classes or maybe have a good couple nights of sleep before anxiety induced insomnia kicked in, but being sleep deprived and having more coffee than blood running in her veins has always been her normal state.

And lately, it’s been easier not only to fall asleep, but to stay asleep as well. Because going the literal extra mile in her workouts or drinking herbal teas that tasted like grass and mud would make her  _ fall _ asleep. Staying asleep, having an actually restorative sleep was another matter completely.

Lately, she’s been falling asleep maybe half an hour after turning her lights on, half expecting this to be the night she’d wake up in a cold sweat, or have a fitful on-again-off-again sleep. It’s always a surprise, albeit a pleasant one, when she wakes up a minute or two before her alarm goes off, feeling rested and ready to take on the day.

It’s a new feeling - not an unwelcome feeling by any means, but a new one nonetheless.

Clarke knows she could chuck that to her new workout routine, more focused on the clarity of mind it brings her than building muscles. Maybe it’s because she’s actually buckling down and buying vegetables like a grown adult, maybe it’s because she’s slowly letting go of little self destructive habit that lingered on despite the years of therapy.

But she knows that, truly, there’s only one reason for that.

It’s been a month since she started getting some decent sleep. It’s been a month since she spent the evening at Lexa’s place, talking about nothing and everything while watching over Aden.

Between watching Lexa being a mom, fierce and gentle in all its worth, and poking at wounds that have been festering for years on end, Clarke realized that they have a shot, they still have a shot. Maybe not at being together, maybe she lost that when she walked away on Lexa, but they have a shot at being civil near each other, at least, at building a friendship that they both could use.

If her heart blooms and hope flourishes in her chest, warming every nerve ending in her body, when Clarke thinks about the cookbook tucked in between other two that clearly don’t get as much use, she pretends not to notice it.

Clarke still avoids going wherever she could possibly meet Lexa - the list goes from Anya’s place to the bakery where they sell an insanely good butter tart that Raven mentioned Lexa likes. 

But in the month since Clarke has seen a vulnerable side to Lexa, a side she didn’t think she would ever be allowed a glance anymore, they’ve ran into each other once. It had been enough to leave Clarke giddy like a schoolgirl in love for the whole day, even if their encounter had been nothing at all. 

Clarke was pulling up to Raven’s driveway, one coffee in her hand, another in the cup holder near the dashboard, and she was late for work -  _ they _ were late, because Raven had to clock in at the same time as her, but it seemed to be more of a suggestion than a rule that should be obeyed for the engineer. Clarke was about to slam her fist on her horn when she saw a yellow and red blur crossing the driveway, and it took her a moment to realize that  _ blur _ was Aden running to the front door, getting on his tiptoes to open the door. 

It had been a sight for sore eyes to see Lexa running in heels, a tiny backpack slung over her shoulder, trying to keep up with her son who seemed to be way too eager to  _ do things _ that early in the morning. Clarke stared - because of course she stared like a goddamn creep - and Lexa caught her eyes right when Raven climbed into the car, waved her hello before climbing the steps to let her son inside.

It was progress. It was huge progress. Her face may have soured a little bit, and it might have been the quickest wave in the history of waves - but it was  _ progress _ .

And ever since then, Clarke has been craving another accidental run into - something she could credit to fate, to destiny, to the universe sending her a sign. 

Well, okay, maybe walking down the halls of a law firm that carries Lexa’s last name in every paper to be signed and business card issued that isn’t exactly leaving it up to fate. But it’s not like she’s just sauntering around the hallways and lingering in waiting rooms, hoping to run into someone who she isn’t even all that sure wants to see her, and that’s enough to tamper the nerves in her stomach.

Ever since she’s given Anya a painting for her to hang in her office - that was tastefully done in blacks and greys but seriously lacking any life to it -, the woman has been hyping up her work with every coworker that complimented the piece, every client that couldn’t take their eyes off of it. Which led to more commissions than Clarke knows what to do with.

Her painting had been something simple, light and dark gray floating from the edges and meeting in the middle with golden foil crumbled where they touch, something Clarke had made without thinking and didn’t really know what to do with it until she realized it’d fit the whole aesthetic Anya had going on in her office.

Anya talking her up and handing out her business cards to everyone she could is a nice gesture, definitely nicer than she’d ever expect from her. So every now and then, Clarke comes over to drop something off to a business associate or another lawyer, secretly hoping Lexa will walk out of a room the moment she passes by it, get out the elevator when she’s getting in -  _ anything _ .

But Clarke makes sure to never even be in the same floor as her office, because she’s trying her hardest to give the space Lexa wants, even if her heart wants to feel Lexa’s beating against it.

Walking out the elevator after just dropping off a commision, Clarke sighs. A senior lawyer had asked something in the same fashion as the painting in Anya’s office, but with earth tones instead of grays - it’s supposed to be a gift for his daughter and, after stalking her Instagram extensively, Clarke had decided to try her hand at a beachy scenario, the gold foil in it working as the soft sunlight in the sunrise. But lounging a five feet tall painting up four floors after carrying it halfway across the city isn’t the kind of thing she looks forward to doing again.

It’s barely ten in the morning and Clarke feels ready for bed, the muscles in her back screaming with the effort she made so early in the day. But school is off and it’s a beautiful day out, she refuses to waste it lying on the couch watching crappy daytime TV.

She’s considering getting something to eat at one of the hipster coffee shops downtown and then heading to her favorite art supply store to see what new things they got since she’s been there, when she hears laughter - not  _ two adults sharing a joke _ laughter, but a giddy, happy laughter that can only come from a toddler.

It gives her pause. And she listens, because that kind of laughter is something she doesn’t want to disturb, doesn’t want to miss out on. The laughter dies down after a moment and then Clarke hears a very familiar voice chirping up a “ _ look, mommy _ ”.

Before she fully realizes what she’s doing, Clarke walks towards the door where the deliciously happy sounds seem to be coming from and pokes her head inside.

The sight she meets almost takes her breath away, tugs at her lips demanding a smile. Lexa is leaning back on her chair, talking to someone just out of Clarke’s line of sight, thumbing away at her phone with one hand while the other holds on to chubby legs wiggling happily on her lap. Her eyes drift to Aden, drawing on the back of what looks like used to be important papers, his hands clutching two crayons at once, his eyes wild with the way the two colors show up on the paper - and possibly on the desk as well.

Clarke takes a step inside, judging it rude to see them and not even walk in to greet then and ask how Aden is doing after having the croup, but then she sees who Lexa is talking to - Echo. “Hi,” Clarke says, awkwardness creeping up her core as she stands dead in her tracks, “I didn’t mean to interrupt, I just- I heard Aden.”

Echo turns and Clarke feels a familiar dread pooling in her stomach - the same dread that she used to feel in the seconds before her mask fell into place and she got into character for her clients. That dread that comes with not really knowing what to expect.

“Well,  _ Clarke _ ,” Echo purrs her name, taking her in. She knows she’s a far cry from what Echo is used to, plunging dresses that ended before her thighs begun giving way to paint stained tee and mom jeans. “Long time no see.”

Clarke wants to flee. Because even if she hasn’t seen Lexa in weeks, hasn’t talked to her in over a month, things were going well between them. With painstakingly small steps, they’ve been getting better at being near each other. But the last time things were going well and Echo showed up, Clarke spent half a decade drowning in regret and self hatred.

“Hello, Echo,” Clarke keeps her voice steady, holds her head a little higher, “You didn’t like the New York office?” She tries to make conversation, because it’s the polite thing to do, because it’s the only thing she can think of to do. But it falls on deaf ears.

“Oh, no no,” Echo takes a slow step towards her, glaring at her with intense eyes, like a lioness stalking its prey. Clarke remembers a time when she used to do just that, knows how effective it can be, but she tries to hold her ground. She’s grown soft over the years, but she can still handle a former client being a bitch, if it comes down to it, “Don’t try to act as if I’m the surprise here.”

Before Clarke can try and grasp for words that aren’t coming, a little hushed voice cuts through the tension in the room. “Mommy, it’s the lady with the pink hair!” Aden says in a whisper that is barely lower than his normal tone, turning on Lexa’s lap to look at her. Clarke notices how Lexa shifts her grasp to keep him from falling on his butt, and half her tension just melts away, “Can I go show my drawing to her? What’s her name?” 

Lexa leans in to whisper in his ear - an actual whisper, that ripples a giggling fit from him - and Aden wiggles his way down her lap, clutching his drawing in his tiny fist. They haven’t said a word to each other yet, but letting Aden walk towards her seems bigger than if she had actually talked. For a moment, she forgets all about Echo - because Lexa is smiling at her little boy skipping halfway across the room, all proud of his drawing.

“Hello, Ms. Clarke,” Aden says in a voice that sounds very formal for a four year old, “Would you like to see my drawing?”

Clarke doesn’t fight the smile now. “Yes, I would love to,” she answers truthfully and leans down as he stands beside her, pulling out his drawing to show her like they’re two business associates talking over a contract - she can’t help but see Lexa in all his little mannerisms, and it only serves to widen her smile.

“This is Ellie, the elephant, and his is her favorite tree,” Aden says as he points to the gray blob in the middle of the page. He keeps describing his drawing, all the nuances of the story it’s supposed to represent, and Clarke glances up - Echo rolls her eyes, barely disguising her annoyance at being interrupted by a child, but it’s Lexa that catches her attention. She’s leaning forward, her elbows propped up on the desk, face resting on her knuckles and a look of utter awe coloring her features.

Clarke looks back down just in time for her to catch the last few words of Aden’s story, and she cheers him on, “This is a very beautiful drawing, Aden. You did such a good job with it!”

He thanks her, drawing the word out in the cutest possible way, and plops down on the floor, sitting beside her and going back to his drawing, adding some finishing touches with a purple crayon. Clarke watches him for a moment, smiling at the way he stretches his legs to make enough room in between them to fit the whole paper, and she half wants to address the fact that Aden is in the firm with Lexa, in an office all of his own, apparently, and he does not have a lawyer license. But Lexa’s voice cuts her before she can voice it.

“Echo, as I was saying. I won’t be able to make it today,” Lexa says, her voice even and cool, as if Clarke and Echo standing in the same room as her doesn’t bring any memories. There’s a finality to her tone, and she circles her desk, walks over the Echo, like this is a goodbye, “But I’m free next week, maybe we could do brunch?”

“Only if I get to have you all the way to dinner,” Echo flirts, pulling at Lexa’s blouse and pouting at her, her bottom lip jutting out just enough for it to be enticing. It earns her a light hearted eye roll, but Lexa nods with a sigh.

_ Oh _ .

It hits Clarke slowly at first, and then it downs on her all at once - like ripples that barely graze your feet in the early morning and turn to monstrous waves by afternoon.

“Did you two- Are you two-” The words tumble out of her lips before she thinks them through, finds herself stumbling in them as she tries to shove them back down her throat. When two pairs of eyes stare at them, as confused as she is at what she’s about to say, Clarke sighs, goes with it, “I didn’t realize you two were an item.”

Echo throws her head back as a chuckle ripples through her and Clarke watches with a slight pang in her heart as Lexa’s eyes go wide. “We are  _ not _ .” 

Her chuckling dies down and Echo sighs dramatically, wrapping her arm around Lexa’s waist and pulling her close. If that gesture alone makes Clarke seethe, she stores it away. Over the years, she’s figured she’d have to win Lexa’s heart again, to break her walls down and get in inch by inch. It never occurred to her that Lexa could have found love again.

“I tried and I tried, but she loves another,” Echo says in a defeated tone, which only earns her an eye roll as Lexa steps aside until she’s out of the half hug. Echo pouts, she honest to God  _ pouts _ , and it looks out of place in the whole situation.

“Echo is engaged to Bellamy, he’s Octavia’s brother,” Lexa says with an even voice, her hands clasping on her back as her eyes flicker to Aden, who’s still happily drawing at Clarke’s feet. 

Clarke can barely hide her relief.

“You, Woods, are a bummer. We could have had so much fun with Clarke here squirming with jealousy,” Echo clicks her tongue at the missed opportunity and Lexa tilts her jaw, the little gesture she does whenever she’s annoyed. They might be friendly now, but Echo is just as ill-timed as she were six years ago. “What did happen between you two, by the way? Lexa never said anything and believe me, I tried to get it out of her.”

Clarke half chuckles to herself, something born out of despair more than out of amusement, because what happened between she and Lexa is the exact thing Echo cursed into life. 

She’s about to say something clipped and short, something that she regrets before she even find the words, but Lexa beats her to it. “I’ll call you about our meeting, but you should be ready to pay a fine and not a cheap one,” Lexa says dryly, as if to make a point that this will be nothing but a business brunch, “Send Bellamy my love.”

“I’ll leave you two love birds to it, then” Echo shrugs, grabbing her things from Lexa’s desk before she takes a few steps towards Clarke, leans in to half whisper in her ear, just loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, “You might’ve been gone for  _ way  _ too long, but her ass is still yours. If you play your cards right.”

Cold dread washes over Clarke, leaving behind a comforting warmth she couldn’t expect. Before she can make her voice work, Lexa quirks her eyebrow to Echo, saying her next words a bit too pointedly, “Goodbye, Echo.”

A heavy silence weighs the air around them as Echo leaves, the only real noise being the way Aden talks to himself as he doodles away. Because she stirred something they had been tiptoeing around ever since they met at the gallery - something Clarke isn’t sure they can really talk about just yet, not with how fragile the balance is in their almost-friendship.

Clarke opens her lips to say something, still not sure she should apologize for getting in or explain why she’s in the building at all. But before she can find the words, Aden springs up from his spot beside her.

“All done, mommy,” Aden announces in a cheerful tone that doesn’t quite match what the other two are feeling, something he’s completely oblivious to. He hands Lexa his drawing, grabbing her hand before she can give him any sort of praise, dragging her back towards her desk, “Help me up?”

Lexa gives him her undivided attention and for a moment, Clarke is happy to just stand back and watch how the hard exterior she tries so hard to keep up just crumbles whenever she’s with her son.

She hoists Aden up on her chair, adjusting its height for him to be able to plop his chin on her desk and reach over for fresh papers. Lexa tidies her desk as much as she brings everything closer to him, stopping to press a gentle kiss to his temple before walking back towards Clarke.

As Lexa crosses her arms across her chest, her walls rising back up in surprising speed, Clarke can’t help but let her eyes wander. She’s known the business side of Lexa, but there’s a difference between watching her talking about this or that in a cocktail dresses and seeing her actually dressed for the office. She has the whole look - high heels, pencil skirt that hugs her almost sinfully, droopy silk blouse that makes Clarke think things she’s not allowed to anymore.

“So,” Lexa starts and Clarke snaps her eyes back to her face, warmth crawling up her neck at being caught staring, “What are you doing here?” Lexa says in a neutral tone, something that no one would think anything of, but she seems to realize her words could easily sound a little too hostile, “I mean, not that you’re not welcome here. I-”

“It’s fine,” Clarke brushes her off with a pestering smile that insists on finding its way to her lips - because Lexa is trying to be friendly and that’s as much as Clarke could ever ask for, “I came by to deliver a commission, but then I heard Aden. You’re in a different office,” Clarke waves around the office, steering the conversation away from her doing commissions before they even get to that.

It’s not a bad office, definitely more than good enough for whoever works in a cubicle all day and wants to get up the business ladder, but a bit more cramped than she’s expect Lexa to have. “Yeah, those crayons are unforgiving and I can’t afford to have them in my desk-” Lexa says, pointing to Aden who’s going off the paper way too often, but then her eyes snap back to Clarke, “ _ Wait _ . How do you know that?”

“I just assumed, because I mean, it’s in the second floor and-” Clarke tries to brush it off, but Lexa looks at her so pointedly that she caves, her resolve to melting down the moment forest green eyes meet hers. She sighs, “I, well, whenever I come here I try to avoid going by your office. You know, give you the distance you asked me to.”

“That’s-” Lexa starts as she searches for something in Clarke’s face, seemingly at a loss for words, “It’s a thoughtful thing to do, Clarke. Thank you.” 

“Mommy, where’s my blue crayon?” Aden shouts, a little louder than he has to when it’s mostly silent in the whole building, the walls blocking most of the business chatter, and their moment is gone, “I need my blue crayon to do the clouds.”

Lexa turns around the moment Aden calls her, giving him her full attention once again. She walks the distance to him, crouching down to get his crayons - the blue one and another handful - from where they’d fallen to. Clarke goes over to the desk to see what Aden is working on, fondness surging in her chest at the scribbled lines that barely take the shape of a horse, and watches the way Lexa leans over him, handing him the crayon and complimenting his drawing through his incessant chatter.

Watching not only Lexa, but Aden, with his gestures and non stop blabber, makes Clarke realize she’s only met Aden three times before - once when he was half asleep and barely realized she was there at all, then when he came to the gallery and was clearly not comfortable in such a foreign place, and last month when he was sick and too out of it to do much but struggle for air. 

But now that he’s in his own environment, he’s unstoppable.

“You seem to have your hands full in here,” Clarke says when Aden’s chatter dies down as he focuses on his drawing again, catching the crayon that almost rolls out of the desk when he puts it down to favor another color, “Can you even get anything done while watching him?”

“I haven’t been able to so far, no,” Lexa sighs, the stress of having to look after her son when she should be working weighing on her shoulders. Her phone starts ringing across the desk and she reaches for it only to reject the call, murmuring a  _ ‘shit’ _ low enough that Aden doesn’t hear. She lets out another sigh, this one even more tired than the previous one, “His nanny called in sick and I couldn’t find anyone to watch him, so I had to bring him to work. He’s fine but I can’t really focus with him running around.”

Hearing that makes Clarke forget how to breathe for a moment, her limbs turning to jello, her stomach fluttering with something she can’t quite name yet - but feels remarkably similar to hope, unabashed hope.

Because Lexa is trying to be friendly, telling her a detail she didn’t have to, sharing the burden she would have carried alone a few months ago. Lexa is really trying not to hate Clarke and that’s more than she could have asked for.

The giddiness that bubbles in her chest and makes her heart swell to twice its size overpowers any rational thought and, before she can think it all through, she bursts out, “I could take him out for the day.” Lexa turns to her, eyebrows quirked in a silent question that Clarke can’t answer. She herself is a little taken aback, but she pushes through, “I don’t work today so I can watch him, if you want.”

The “ _ if you trust me enough to do it _ ” is implied.

Lexa watches her for a moment, her eyes piercing through any defenses Clarke might have had left, her gaze so intense Clarke finds it hard to breathe. Then she shakes her head, looking away, “Clarke, I couldn’t possibly ask that from you.” 

“I don’t mind it, really,” Clarke says and she means it. Aden seems to like her well enough that he wouldn’t be too scared to stay with her for a few hours, and she’s pretty sure he’d love the art store she’s meaning to go. “I was gonna go to the park anyway, I might as well bring him along. It’s no trouble.” 

It’s a big leap she’s asking from Lexa, it demands a lot more faith than she might have in her.

“I’d ask Anya, but she’s knee deep in a case she can’t get out of, and my mom-” Lexa cuts herself off and sighs, apparently thinking it’s more than she should share. Clarke waits, holds onto the back of a chair to keep herself from tilting with how shaky her legs are, watches the emotions playing clear across Lexa’s face as she considers all her options. At last, she sighs. “I wouldn’t take you up on this if I had any other option.”

“I know that,” Clarke says simply. She doesn’t take it as an offense, that Lexa would rather leave her son with virtually anyone other than Clarke - it’s just the reality they’re in and for now, it’s okay. “I’ll keep him safe and well fed, and I’ll send you pictures throughout the day so you know he’s okay,” Clarke adds, taking a step closer when Lexa meets her eyes, “He’ll be okay, Lex.”

The nickname tumbles out of her lips before she can stop herself, but if the soft smile that tugs the corner of Lexa’s lips up is anything to go by, Clarke didn’t fuck up  _ that _ badly - and she’d be lying if she said it doesn’t feel freeing to be able to do something as simple as call Lexa by a nickname.

Instead of saying anything else, Lexa turns to Aden, crouches down beside him so they’re eye level, and brushes his hair away from his eyes, “Hey baby,” she starts, sparing a glance at Clarke before saying, “Would you be okay spending a few hours with Clarke?”

Aden doesn’t even bother looking up from his drawing as he reaches for nother crayon, “The lady with the pink hair?”

“Yes, the lady with pink hair,” Lexa smiles and Clarke smiles with her, because Aden is too adorable for them to react any differently, “You can go to the park for a bit, then maybe the library. You like the library, don’t you?” He nods and turns to his mom, pursing his lips as he lets go from his crayons, “And as soon as I’m done with work, I’ll pick you up.”

“‘Kay,” he agrees, seemingly fine with the change of plans for the day as he shimmies down from the chair, nearly falling on his face but Lexa steadies him just in time, “Can I take the crayons with me? To draw at the park.”

“Yes, of course,” Lexa says as he looks back at the crayons hopefully, and stands up, “Why don’t you grab everything and then you can do just that.”

There’s not much Clarke can do besides watch as mother and son picks with an array of things all around the office - she knows kids come with a lot of crap, from snacks to toys they wouldn’t even touch, but Aden grabs a  _ lot _ of things. As he shoves all the crayons his mom handed him into a tiny backpack, Lexa reaches over her desk and scribbles something in a notepad. She tears off the page and hands it to Clarke, about to say something else as Aden yells, “ _ Where’s my giraffe?! _ ”

Clarke looks at the paper, the handwriting in it matching the neat one she found in the cookbook, and it takes her a moment to focus on the actual words in it - the tilted Ts and uneven Ms bringing her heart to a ridiculous staccato. When she does find her focus, she has to stifle a laughter that is more nervous energy than actual humor - in the paper are written down Lexa’s number, the firm’s number, her mother’s number and what Clarke thinks is Aden’s pediatrician’s number.

It’s maybe two more numbers than she knows what to do with, but she pockets it anyway, makes sure that it stays safe in case she does need them. 

She shifts her attention to Aden tapping on her leg and holding up his backpack with a simple “ _ here _ ”, and she takes it without much thinking - he clearly has a lot on his plate already now that he’s holding one crayon on his little fist  _ and _ his stuffed giraffe.

“You should be able to reach me in any of those first two numbers. But if anything happens and you can’t find me, call my mother. She’s not in town but she maybe she can help you through the phone.” Lexa hands her another bag, big enough to fit who Adens in it, and Clarke readily takes it, “Here’s everything he might need for the day. But call me if you have any doubts. And I do expect those updates.” 

Lexa talks very fast, almost too fast for anyone to understand her, clearly worried about this whole endeavour, and Clarke can’t help but smile at her.

“He’ll be fine, Lexa. I’ll keep him safe and sound,” she assures Lexa, sounding more confident than she feels, and turn to the four year old trying to crawl under one of the chairs, “Come on, Aden. Say bye bye to mommy.” 

The words taste sweet in her tongue. Clarke watches with fondness as Lexa kisses his head and tells him to behave, to tell Clarke if he feels iffy, and a thousand more things that surely goes over his head. When Lexa gently nudges him towards her, Clarke has to swallow past the lump in her throat to make her voice work again.

“Can I put your crayon in your bag so you can hold my hand?” Clarke asks him and Aden readily gives her the crayon, apparently very excited about going out with  _ the lady with pink hair _ . Putting the crayon in the first pockets she finds, Clarke grabs his free hand, watching as he clutches his giraffe a little tighter, “Have you ever ridden the subway?”

“The  _ subway? _ ” Lexa half chokes on the word before Aden can even process the question, her eyes widening with fear. 

Clarke half wants to say that it’s just the subway, she’s not taking him to a crackhouse. But she doubts the joke will go over well, “I’ll sanitize his hands before and after,” Clarke says, guessing what Lexa might be worried about, “And he won’t let go from my hand, will you, Aden?”

“Nope!” Aden bounches on the balls of his feet, awkwardly waving his hand to Lexa as he pulls Clarke out the door, shouting over his shoulder, “Bye, mommy.”

The last thing Clarke sees before walking into the hallway is a very concerned Lexa, worrying her lip in between her teeth. Aden waves his goodbye until his mom is completely out of sight and Clarke has to fight the urge to add Lexa’s number to her contacts already, send her a text saying they’ll be fine. 

Lexa must know that. She has to at least believe in that, otherwise she wouldn’t have let Clarke take her son like that.

Making sure she has a tight grip on Aden’s hand, Clarke looks down at herself and counts her bags again - Aden’s backpack is being held in place more by the heavier bag with a long strap than my her own shoulder, and her own bag is slung across her body. Overall, it’s not too heavy - she has certainly carried more things when she was attending art school, but somehow, shouldering an easel through New York streets seems less daunting than taking a kid to the park.

As they walk out of the building, Aden presses slightly closer to her, a grin on his face as he hurries up his little steps to keep up with her. He’s ready for an adventure and Clarke is just barely being able to keep it together and pretend all of this isn’t terrifying at all.

“What do you know about the subway?” Clarke asks when they make a turn towards the park she’s seen on her way over, trying to remember how to talk to four year olds. She’s not bad with children, she  _ knows _ this, but it’s been a while.

“Uh-” Aden pauses for a moment, running beside them as they cross the street, then shrugs, “I dunno.”

She slows her pace to match his, “It’s a train that goes underground! We’ll ride it all the way from the park to my house and then back to your place when mommy’s home,” Clarke says in an excited tone, smiling when Aden’s jaw drops, “It goes super, super fast! We’re gonna have so much fun.”

“I wanna go now!” Aden skips next to her, tugging at her hand in pleading.

Clarke pretends to think for a while as she pulls him closer to avoid a lamp post, then relents, “We could go now.  _ Or _ we could go to the park first! I bet they even have a jungle gym in there.”

Aden gasps, walking sideways so he can look up at her and hold her hand with both of his. “Park, park, park,” he chants and Clarke nods, smiling at him. It’s hard to  _ not _ smile at how much his face brightens up at the mere mention of a jungle gym. “Mommy says it’s dirty, but I like the sand. And the climbers, that’s my favorite part. And the slides too. I only go when auntie Rae-Rae takes me there. Or at school.”

Hearing him call Raven “ _ auntie Rae-Rae _ ” tugs at Clarke’s heart, the innocence in that simple nickname leaving her to imagine what Raven is like with him.

She makes another turn, doing a quick mental scan of her surroundings to figure out how far they are from the park - because Aden’s legs are tiny, he’s probably going to tire out soon, “What’s your favorite thing about school?”

“Outdoor play!” Aden all but shouts, skipping beside her again, “And cooking. Did you know we cook in my school? And with mommy too. It’s really fun.”

Clarke tugs at him again a millisecond before he hits his face on a passerby’s bag - it’s almost more adrenaline than she can handle, maneuvering Aden among a sea of people, and she wonders how on earth Lexa can do that everyday. “Do you help mommy cook?”

“Mm-hmm,” Aden hums, taking in everything with wide eyes. It’s probably not a stretch to say he’s never walked on the street for so long, “I help with dinner every night and we bake when she doesn’t work. She has a big book that tells her everything she needs to make yummy things.”

It makes Clarke’s breath catch in her throat. It’s nothing much, a single fact in between a million he’s laying out to her, a simple thing that has been part of Aden’s life for a long time now. But it’s enough to make Clarke grip his hand a bit tighter, inhale a little sharper, will her heart to stay still. 

All she can do it nod, swallowing past the lump in her throat as they cross the street towards the park. Clarke welcomes the fresh air, crisp and sharp and exactly what she needs to get a grip on herself - she has a whole afternoon to go with this little guy and something tells her this won’t be the last time Aden makes her struggle to breathe.

Because he’s  _ Lexa _ , through and through. Aden is a part of Lexa and everything about him, all his mannerisms and the way he holds himself, has something of his mother in it. As it should, but it has Clarke praying to whatever gods are listening that she makes it through this afternoon without losing it in front of a four year old.

“Are you hungry?” Clarke asks after a moment as they make their way down a paved path among the trees, towards the playground in a corner of the park.

It’s a beautiful place and Clarke makes a mental note to come back another day with her watercolors and a bigger sketchbook than the one she always carries in her bag. There’s a lake near the middle of the park and a gazebo somewhere, but her fingers itch for her to get all the different shades of green down on paper.

If she looks for one particular shade of green wherever she goes, Clarke chooses to ignore the way her heart pounds at the mere thought of that.

“No,” Aden answers simply, apparently too excited to even remember that he needs to eat. He might be okay with a snack for a few hours, but Clarke needs to get some real food in him before Lexa comes over to pick him up.

Clarke struggles with the opening in the larger bag, but when she finally snaps it open she finds exactly what she was hoping for - enough snacks to keep Aden fed for a week. “Are you sure? We have snacks.”

There might even be a lunch packed for him in there somewhere, and Clarke takes a quick look around. She finds a change of clothes, an extra sweater and a baseball cap included, hand sanitizer, sunscreen, bandages, some medicine and a few story books. Lexa really thought of it all.

“Yeah,” Aden says, his attention turned to the playground that comes seemingly out of nowhere as their path leads them there, “Can we go to the jungle gym now?”

“Yes, lead the way. Go on,” Clarke says sweetly, nudging him forward when he pauses for a moment. It’s all he needs to hand her his stuffed giraffe and run towards the playground, kicking sand into the air as he makes his way to the little ladder that’ll take him to the slides. Clarke walks towards him, smiling at how wide he’s grinning as she takes her phone out of her pocket, “Will you make a pose for me to take a picture? With a big smile to show mommy?”

Aden nods, climbing the ladder almost shaking with excitement. He sits down at the beginning of the slide and grips the sides, looking at Clarke with a toothy grin so wide his eyes almost close. She snaps a few pictures before telling him he’s good to go, and she can’t help the laughter that bubbles in her chest when Aden goes down the slide and tumbles on the sand, lying down there in a fit of giggles.

It’s a beautiful sight and it lifts something from Clarke’s chest, something she didn’t even realize was there until it was gone.

Helping Aden get up from the ground while trying to keep all the bags from falling on top of him, Clarke crouches down to his eye level. She sees sand all but pouring from his hair, glued to his arms and to his clothes, but he looks so thrilled to be out here that Clarke just grips his hands a little tighter, making a mental note to scrub him squeaky clean before giving him back to Lexa.

“Are you good here? Is this fun?” Clarke tries to make sure, and Aden nods, his tongue going out and catching a few grains of sand stuck to his chin. She cleans it off, wincing at the thought of his mom seeing him eating sand, even if accidentally, “I’ll be right there, you see that bench? If you need anything, come find me. And if any strangers come talk to you, you shout for me, okay?”

He gives her a halfheartedly “ _ ‘kay _ ” before untangling his hands from hers and going back to the jungle gym, making his way up in the climbers and padding towards the sliders again. Clarke watches him from up close for another moment or two, her smile impossible to reign in, then she finds the bench she pointed to, making her way towards it.

Dropping more than placing all the bags on the middle of it, Clarke plops down, pulling her phone back out. She finally does add Lexa to her contacts list and if she spends a full minute trying to figure out if she should put any emoji beside her name or keep it simple, Clarke shrugs it off.

After browsing through the handful of pictures she took, she sends one to Lexa with “ _ safe and sound at the park! _ ” and pockets it again, fighting the urge to wait for a reply and looking through Aden’s bag for a place to fit his stuffed giraffe.

Clarke takes a look at the endless supply of snacks, finding anything from raisins and oranges to oatcakes and homemade snack mix. She does find a packed lunch labeled “chicken tortilla wrap w/ beetroot and carrot salad. apple slices and greek yogurt’ in Lexa’s neat handwriting, which makes her breathe easier. She can feed the little guy without worrying about ruining him.

With a look at Aden to make sure he’s okay, Clarke takes her sketchbook out of her bag and settles into the moment. She opens a blank page and stares at it for a moment, before starting to jot down the rough outlines for the jungle gym.

The warm breeze - a miracle in and of itself for this time of the year in Canada - makes Clarke feel content in her own skin and where she is right now, like there’s nowhere else she’s ever belonged more to than in this moment. 

Maybe it has more to do with the four year old giggling at her every time she looks up than anything else.

Before she realizes time going by, Clarke has four sketches to show for the day - the jungle gym with trees disappearing in the distance, Aden smiling at her from the top of the slide, the row of benches beside her in a wonky perspective, a face study she’s drawn time and again over the years and seems to be the one she goes back to the more often.

Picking up her phone to check the time, Clarke sees a message from Lexa. It’s a simple “ _ Good. Thanks for checking in _ ” but her pulse picks up anyway. She’s about to reply with something she’ll regret later when Aden comes running to her and crashes on her knees before he can stop his feet, face all red and sweaty.

“I’m hungry,” he says, half out of breath, and Clarke looks at her phone once more before pocketing it. It’s almost one in the afternoon, the kid should be starving.

“You burned all your energy in that jungle gym, didn’t you? Did you have fun?” Clarke starts a conversation again, putting her sketchbook away and grabbing Aden’s tiny backpack. He slides his arms in the straps as he nods, and Clarke shoulders the other two bags before getting up, “Let’s go find somewhere to have lunch then. What do you say we find somewhere in the shade and sit down there?”

Aden slides his hand in her grasp as she starts walking towards the unpaved path that cuts through the trees, “On the grass? Are we allowed to do that?”

Clarke bites her tongue to keep herself from smiling - this, right  _ there _ , is all Lexa. “I think so. Sure. I used to eat out in the park a lot when I was younger,” she says, tugging him towards the path that leads to the lake, “Your mom might not love it, we just gotta make sure you don’t have any bug bites.”

Aden nods, his smile becoming something almost mischievous, and he lets go of Clarke’s hand, skipping ahead. She makes a halfheartedly attempt to call him back and tell him to slow down, but the way his hair plops up and down on the top of his head as he runs melts whatever if left from Clarke’s resolve. 

Instead, she lets him run wild, circling trees and tripping over air as he speeds ahead. Clarke makes sure to always have a visual on him, even if it’s simply his skinny arms swinging above his head as he tries to catch a low hanging leaf, because the responsibility of caring after a child still sits heavily on her shoulders.

Before long they’re sitting under a sugar maple - they  _ are _ in Canada, after all - and Aden is happily eating his lunch. He sits in the way they teach kids at school, with his legs spread out enough that his lunch box fits snuggly in the space between and it catches anything that might fall. 

It’s easy to be there, soaking the afternoon sun that is still a bit too shy even for this far up north, watching Aden trying to catch his breath and eat at the same time.

As a streak of light hits Aden’s sandy hair just right, Clarke pulls out her phone, snapping a picture of him mid bite. She takes a few other, even bothering him a little so he would look up and smile  _ for mommy _ before letting him get back to it, and opens the message thread with Lexa. 

She attaches the picture of him grinning at the camera, yogurt giving him a nice ‘stache, and taps the side of her phone as she thinks of a caption. It shouldn’t feel this important and Clarke could very well just send the picture on its own for Lexa to rest assured that his son is okay.

But these texts are the closest Clarke has been from Lexa in  _ years _ , the closest she’s been allowed to get ever since she pushed her away and turned her back on what could have been an amazing love story.

Swallowing past the lump in her throat, Clarke types out a simple “ _ guess who ate all of his lunch? greenery might just be the trick to get kids to eat _ ” and hits send before she even thinks it through - she has no idea if Aden is a picky eater and he might as well clean his plate every single day, Clarke doesn’t know that.

And there’s a goddamn reason why she couldn’t possibly know any of that.

Clarke stiffles a groan and reaches out for Aden’s empty lunch box, putting it back in place as she takes out hand sanitizer and wet wipes to clean the mess he made. It’s not much, but the gentle stroke of the wipes against his chubby palms makes him giggle and that’s enough to lighten Clarke’s mood.

She’s barely done putting everything away when Aden springs up from the ground, apparently done collecting grass blades, “Can we take a walk? I wanna go see the lake.”

They had stopped for lunch a little sideways from the lake, so Clarke nods because truth be told, she wants to see it as well. She’s never been to this park before and it’s beautiful, a peaceful place smack dab in the middle of the busy downtown area, so she lets him lead the way as she carries everything behind him. 

Aden half walks, half skips down a small hill that leads them towards the paved paths they were in before, and Clarke tries to tell him it’s the wrong way, but he seems content to just walk around for a little.

There’s something precious in walking around with Aden, in how the wind almost knocks him down a few times and makes him giggle, in talking to him about what he wants to be when he grows up - either an astronaut or a firefighter, he hasn’t decided yet -, in watching how his eyes go wild at the sight of a wild goose, excitement mixed with fear of the unknown as he hides behind her legs before approaching it carefully.

Children are precious, period.

Clarke refuses to let her heart sink when her throat tightens up, when she wonders if she’ll ever have something like this, her traitor mind failing to rein those thoughts in. Instead, she soaks him up, answering every question he has and listening to him go on and on about his favorite dinosaurs.

He keeps close to her for the most part, asking which trees they’re passing by, only running away when he wants to make sure Clarke knows which tree he’s talking about. She only knows sugar maple and pine trees, but she makes a deal with him - they’ll take pictures of all the trees he wants to know the name of, and then they’ll look it up. It keeps him entertained for a while, their way to the lake becoming twice as long as Aden tries to find new trees.

When he runs ahead towards the lake, Clarke takes another picture of him. It’s blurry and he’s looking back with a grin on his face, it’s the perfect portrait of their time together, too good for her not to share with Lexa.

Clarke catches up with Aden, who has plopped down maybe a yard from the edge of the lake, his breathing still ragged after running. She sits down beside him and takes another picture - this one has the lake in the background, Aden with his tongue out and his hair sticking to his forehead in the foreground.

Then she opens her message app, the thread with Lexa showing up before she has to tap anything - it’s enough to make her smile, to warm her heart because this is something she wouldn’t  _ dream _ of having a few weeks ago.

Lexa had texted back a simple,  _ “I’m glad he’s eating. We might have dinner out in the backyard more often _ ” and Clarke smiles. But truthfully, she herself can’t tell if she’s happy for not being all that wrong about Aden being a picky eater or for Lexa’s texts becoming longer.

She sends out the blurry picture of Aden running with a caption, “ _ i’m so out of shape i can’t keep up with a four year old _ ” - which isn’t a lie, because she’s already tired to her bones, but it’s more for fun than a real complaint. The answer comes almost immediately, “ _ Aden definitely has a lot of energy. Good luck! _ ”

Clarke is about to text something back, her thumbs hovering over the keyboard, when Aden lies down beside her, linking his hands behind his head and using them as a makeshift pillow. She brushes his sticky hair away from his forehead and his eyes fall closed, too heavy to stay open. 

“Are you tired?” Clarke asks in a soft tone, maybe too soft for the half asleep boy, who barely bothers to mumble in agreement, “Do you want to go home? Not  _ home _ , home because we need to wait for your mom to be done with work. But we can go to my house and you can take a nap.”

The idea of a nap sounds enticing enough to drag out a deep sigh from Aden as he sits up, and mumbles out a sleepy “ _ ‘kay _ .”

Aden holds her hand all through the walk from the park to the subway and Clarke is glad it’s a short walk, but she does consider picking him up after he stumbles on his own feet a few times. He does lighten up a little as they’re going through the ticket gate, giggling as Clarke teaches him how to turn it, telling her the subway is even more fun than the park, but then he’s quiet again. 

All the running around in the park took a toll on him, and Aden snuggles against her side as soon as they find a seat. He’s out as a light the moment the train jolts to life and Clarke keeps an arm around him, making sure he doesn’t jostle badly enough to wake up from his impromptu nap.

When an old lady sits in front of them in the next stop and watches the pout in Aden’s sleepy face for a moment before telling Clarke  _ her son _ is a cutie, she doesn’t have the heart to correct her.

Aden is a bright little boy, with more energy than anyone in Clarke’s life, with more  _ light _ than anyone she’s ever known. And if for a moment someone thinks she looks like the kind of person who could have a son like him, she lets it warm her chest enough for a smile to spread across her face - even as that little nagging voice in the back of her head tells her otherwise.

It doesn’t take much for Aden to wake up when they’re getting to their stop - it seems like the ten minute nap was enough for him to recharge completely. He’s chatty on their way out the station and during the five block walk until her apartment, switching between listing all his favorite things about the subway and retelling an episode from a cartoon that Clarke isn’t quite sure is about bunnies or kittens.

They get to her apartment a little after three and Aden might not want a nap anymore, but Clarke sure as hell wouldn’t say no to one. Sleep and tiredness pulls at her bones and something at the back of her mind tells her she needs to eat, because there’s only so much she can stretch her oversized breakfast, but the thought of cooking makes her cringe.

“I can’t wait to ride the subway when mommy is here and I promise to stay awake all the way now, I promise,” Aden chats away as they get inside, but he slows his steps as he crosses the bathroom door in the entrance hallway and looks to the bedroom on his left, then to the living room on his right and the small kitchen right beside it, “This is tiny.”

Clarke chuckles as she hangs her keys, dropping all the bags right there in the hallway, “What are you talking about? My place is huge.”

“No, it’s not!” Aden giggles at her and she smiles back, walking the distance to him. “I can walk across your house in like three steps.” The sass that comes with being that young amuses Clarke and she just boops his nose, agreeing. He blinks at her and takes in the little art nook in front of him, taking tentative steps - the kind of steps that tells anyone he’s about to do something naughty, “Can I paint here?”

“What about we get in the bath first?” Clarke says, gently plucking the brush from his hand right before he smacks it against the canvas that still hasn’t quite dried yet, “Because you, my kind sir, stink.”

“I do not,” he huffs in pure outrage and crosses his arms around his chest, frowning in a way that reminds Clarke too much of Lexa to be anything less than adorable.

“Yeah, you do,” Clarke answers in a singsong tone, turning him away from the fresh paint that is hardly safe for children and back towards the bathroom, “Come on, I’ll fill up the tub for you and we’ll paint after your bath. What do you think about getting your own canvas?”

“Cool!” Aden lightens up at that thought, walking dutifully towards the bathroom before he zeroes in on his backpack, “I’ll go get my toys.”

Clarke leaves the bathroom door open as she tests the water temperature until it’s almost lukewarm, watching Aden dropping everything from the backpack on the floor and sorting through its contents until he finds his favorite ones - a Superman figurine, a firetruck and three farm animal toys. She gets a soft washcloth to use as a loofah and snatches her shampoo from the shelf as Aden walks over hugging his toys, dropping them in the water before raising his hands over his head for Clarke to help him with his shirt.

Getting into the bathtub is a struggle, Aden refusing to let Clarke pick him up and trying to climb over the edge himself. After a moment, he uses her knee as leverage and gets inside, landing face first in the water, only  _ just _ avoiding hitting his head in the porcelain when Clarke grabs his arm to steady him.

It shakes her to her core because leave it to her to almost drown Lexa’s child, but Aden giggles for a solid minute after drying the water from his eyes.

Clarke lathers his back and chest and scrubs the dirt from his feet as Aden tells her a story he’s making up as he plays with his toys - something about the firemen asking for Superman’s help to save the farm animals, but it has a lots of sharp turns that Clarke can’t really catch up.

He doesn’t stop his storytelling for Clarke to shampoo his hair and she takes her time trying to get the sand from it. She makes a little mohawk with his wet hair and looks back admiring her handiwork for a moment before drying her hands and reaching for her phone, snapping a picture of him mid sentence, Superman flying above his head.

Making a mental note to show it to him later, Clarke rinses his hair and shoulders, patting his face dry before asking if he wants to stay a little longer. She leaves him playing with his toys a little longer when he complains about having to get out and goes to the living room to get everything ready for their painting.

It’s such a sweet thing, to see him murmuring a story to himself, almost too lost in his own little world to even notice she’s gone, and Clarke has to take a moment in the hallway. 

She wants this.

She wants messy and loud baths after an afternoon in the park. She wants cuddles before bed and little feet padding their way to her in the early morning, the look of awe when faced with something new and the tentative words that still seem too hard to make out, the tantrums and calming the nightmares.

Watching over Aden did little to quell the ache in her heart, all it did was remind her of how much she wants to be a mom, how much she could never put any child through something like that.

Taking a deep breath to calm her pounding heart and filling all her emotions away to be dealt with when she  _ didn’t _ have a four year old in her care, Clarke makes her way to the living room. 

She cleans the mess she herself made while trying to get some new paintings done, puts the half finished canvases in her room and sets a new canvas on the easel. It takes her a few tries to settle the easel in the lowest it will go, hoping Aden will be okay with painting standing on a chair so he can reach the top, then she grabs some children-safe acrylic paints and stores her oils away. 

Looking at her little set up and smiling to herself, Clarke pulls her phone out again and quickly texts Lexa the picture of Aden with a bubble mohawk and a toothy grin, pocketing it before going back to the bathroom. She wants to share these moments with Lexa, wants for her to not only be calm in the knowledge her son is safe but also to enjoy these snippets of their day. If it brings a smile to Lexa’s face and warms her heart a little bit, Clarke can sleep easy.

After a solid minute trying to get a shivering Aden from the bath and rinsing him with hot water from the shower to get his lips to go from purple to pink again, Clarke helps him get dressed, wishing Lexa had packet a sweater as well. 

“Guess what I got for you in my art nook,” Clarke prompts as she rubs up and down his arms to heat him up, his hair sticking out to every direction - she should probably comb it, shouldn’t she? Aden looks at her expectantly, “Go on, go look.”

She hears an excited gasp as she walks out the bathroom, bringing a hairbrush with her and leaving the mess to be dealt with later. Aden has his jaw dropped as he takes in the blank canvas, running his fingers over the smooth surface, “Is it for me?”

“Yes, it is! And I also have this, to make you a real artist,” Clarke grabs an art apron that is definitely way too big for him, but he jumps up and down at the mere sight, making grabby hands towards it. Clarke ties it up tight enough that his clothes are mostly covered, rolls up the bottom part until his feet show under it and secures it with clothes pins, using the moment he takes to inspect the apron to smooth his hair down. “Now come here, let’s pick your colors.”

They go over to her desk and Aden readily climbs on the chair, watching Clarke getting a clean tray palette and pointing to the colors she has. He picks a variety of greens, blues and reds, and Clarke adds a little white in there as well, teaching him he can lighten any color of he mixes it with white. He nods and mm-hmms, but Clarke is pretty sure he’s not listening to it and is just too excited to start painting.

She drags the easel closer to him and tries to figure out a way for him to paint without making too much of a mess, but ends up just giving him a few brushes, setting out a plastic cup filled with water on the desk and letting him have at it. 

Clarke watches him dipping the tip of the brush into one of the blue tones and dragging it across the middle of the canvas, taking a step back and frowning as he takes it in. For a moment, she can’t move - the little tilt of the head, eyebrow raising ever so slightly, it’s such a  _ Lexa _ thing to do that it takes Clarke aback. But then she steps closer to him, wraps her hand around his and shows him how to do it, how to make the paint glide across the canvas in a bright color.

Aden is a quick learner and picks it up with no trouble, thanking her for the help, telling her he’s got it now, so Clarke settles on the floor with her sketchbook, her back resting on the back of the couch, her fingers itching to get the scene in front of her down on paper.

Her phone pings with a new notification and Clarke tucks her pencil behind her ear before picking it up. It’s from Lexa - and Clarke can’t help but wonder if her heart will ever stop to curl in on itself every time Lexa’s name lights up her screen -, a reply to the last picture she sent her, “ _ He’s his happiest when he’s in water. _ ”

Clarke smiles to herself and flips the keyboard up, her thumbs hovering the letters as three dots show up - Lexa is typing. It’s only a few moments before another message comes through, “ _ I should be out around 6pm. Could you send me your address? I’ll pick him up right after. _ ”

Having Lexa over sounds tempting. Having Lexa knock on her door and step inside, take in the place Clarke spends most of her time in, find little details that might remind her of a time she didn’t despise her so much sounds very tempting. 

But Aden is too excited about riding the subway again and being awake to enjoy the whole thing, Clarke can’t take that away from him. So she texts Lexa back, “ _ i’ll drop him off, if that’s okay. he really liked the subway. _ ”

The answer comes after two full minutes of Clarke staring at her screen, “ _ Okay, that sounds good. I’ll text you when I leave work, then. You know where I live. _ ”

It’s enough to make Clarke’s heart hammer in her chest, wriggle for space to swell up.

Because it’s more than she could hope for.

Looking at Aden, his tongue trapped in between his teeth as he focuses hard on the line he’s tracing, the oversized apron making him look too adorable for his own good, Clarke opens the camera app and takes a few pictures - some that show the easel twice as big as him and his little feet showing under the apron, a few other zoomed in on his face all scrunched up in concentration, another dozen with something in between.

As she’s scrolling through them and favoriting a couple to send to Lexa, an idea pops into her head. It’s silly enough that she laughs out loud at it, earning a quizzical look from Aden, but before her rational mind can tell her it’s a  _ bad move _ , Clarke taps the screen to go back to the camera app and switch to the frontal camera.

“Aden,” she asks in an overly excited tone, that is only a notch more than how the butterflies in her stomach make her feel, and gets up from the ground, walking towards him, “Want to take a picture with me so we can send it to mom? We can show her what we’ve been up to.”

He gives her a toothy grin and a chirpy  _ mm-hmm _ as she leans down so they’re more or less the same height and can fit in the frame. Aden shuffles on the chair, grabbing her shoulder for balance, and smiles at the camera, a smile so wide and bright that his eyes almost close, that Clarke finds herself mimicking him, her own smile going from practiced to a genuinely happy one.

After a few more pictures with them smiling, then one with their tongues sticking out  _ and _ another with their eyes rolling, Aden dismisses her and goes back to painting, claiming he  _ needs to work _ \- another little thing that sounds remarkably  _ Lexa _ . 

Sitting back on the floor, Clarke taps to open the message thread with Lexa and attaches a few pictures. In one of them, Aden is picking up pain from his palette, his toes curling under his feet as he looks at the colors. In another, he’s frowning deeply and pouting as he lays the pain on the canvas, his grip on the brush so tight his little knuckles flash white. The third and last one, the one Clarke argued with herself for a solid minute whether she should or shouldn’t send, has Aden sticking his tongue out, his paintbrush hanging dangerously close to Clarke’s hair, who’s blowing a kiss to the camera, her pencil still tucking behind her ear.

She types a quick, “ _ we’ll be making art until you’re home _ ,” and presses send, feeling a wave of nervous energy crashing down on her. It’s not exactly subtle, what she’s doing.

A tiny voice in the back of her head tells her she’s walking a very fine line between gaining Lexa’s trust back and losing it all for good and that she should back the hell off. Clarke knows that annoying little voice is right - because it  _ is _ \- and she could be putting it all in risk by being too flirty, too friendly, too much before she has any right to be.

With a deep breath in, she tells herself that one single selfie won’t make Lexa hate her. There’s no reason for it - if anything, Clarke is simply showing her that her son is in good, capable hands. She tells herself that over and over again, until she starts to believe it.

Before she can put her phone down and grab her sketchbook again so she actually  _ is _ making art with Aden until Lexa is done with work, it pings, telling her she has a new message. The little notification on her lock screen shows only one word, possibly Lexa’s shortest text to her to date, but that one word is enough to make Clarke’s blood turn into ice in her veins.

A heavy weight curls around her heart, yanking at it so hard even her lungs stop working for a moment there as she unlocks her phone and opens the message thread to make sure it wasn’t just her tired mind playing tricks on her.

And sure enough, the word remains there even after she stares at it for a full minute, willing her heart to remember how to beat.

_ Cuties! -  _ with a damn exclamation mark.

It’s nothing, but it’s  _ everything _ . It’s an olive branch, one that seems sturdy and ready for Clarke to cling and climb on, it’s more than she thought she’d ever get. Breathing out slowly and sucking in a breath that fills her lungs, Clarke opens the keyboard, her mind racing to figure out what she should answer - it’s almost laughable that all she can think about sending is an emoji.

Three little dots show up and Clarke sits back, stares at them, waits for Lexa to finish typing with her phone held tight in her hands, her heart beating way too fast. Everything makes her feel like a schoolgirl texting her crush, who may or may not like her back, who makes her smile with every word.

When the text does come through after what feels like five whole minutes waiting, Clarke feels a smile she didn’t even realize she had on her lips fading. “ _ I am so sorry, that was Anya and completely out of bounds. Aden seems to be having a lot of fun though. See you both soon _ .

It makes sense that Anya would be the one sending something like that, especially after she dragged Clarke to help Lexa care after a sick Aden. It makes sense, but it doesn’t make it sting any less.

Throwing her phone over her shoulder and hearing it thump on couch and land on the floor feels as good as it feels childish. Thoughts race in her head, climbing on top of each other, fighting for her attention- she can’t do this right now. There will time for her to pour over what it all means and what it  _ doesn’t _ later, when she doesn’t have a three year old in her care.

Clarke gets up and heads over to the kitchen, puts water in the kettle, put it on the stove, leans back and waits for it to boil. She’s been trying to quiet her mind for a while now, but apparently meditation has got nothing against the turmoil the mere thought of Lexa showing any affection for her can cause.

Going through the steps of grabbing a mug, placing a tea bag inside it, pouring water over it helps, but it she reminds another time she was making tea, the surprised look in Lexa’s face, how warm her breath felt against her cheek--

She grabs some juice from the fridge and pours some in a plastic cuppy from some company that she could never figure out how she got in the first place. In case Aden drops it, it’ll be better to clean up if she doesn’t have to keep a very energetic three year old from stepping into broken glass.

“Hey, buddy,” Clarke calls out from the kitchen, chuckling to herself when Aden startles and almost drops his brush, walking to their little art nook, “How are we doing here?”

“All done!” Aden says proudly, looking at his finished piece. It has a  _ lot _ of colors, some mixing with others, lines intertwining until some bits look more like a blob of pain than anything else. But Clarke can see the sun shining bright, two blue people standing in front of a building, flowers as tall as them in the corner - it’s pretty good.

“Oh, you’ve done such a great job, Mr. Painter!” Clarke says in a cheerful voice and Aden squeals in delight, warming her from head to toe. “Do you want another canvas for you to paint on?” She asks as she puts her tea on the desk, plucking the canvas from the easel one handed, handing the plastic cup for Aden once he nods, “I brought you some juice.”

“Thank you,” Aden chirps, ever the polite little Canadian, and sips his juice so eagerly that there’s some on his nose once he comes out for air.

It’s a cute sight, Clarke will say that much. But she focuses on digging behind the bookshelf for a bigger canvas, pulling out one that’s almost as tall as Aden himself, watching his eyes go wide when he takes it in. 

Once he’s finished with his juice and his mouth has been wiped clean, Aden picks up the brush once again, diving right into his new painting. Clarke tells him she’ll put his other canvas next to hers in the next room for it to dry and she makes a mental note to give both of them to Lexa once they’re dry and finished.

If the idea of how proud Lexa will be of her little boy makes Clarke’s heart soar, she simply pushes it down and walks over to the living room, grabs her tea, picks up her sketchbook, settles down on the floor again.

The blank page used to terrify her, now Clarke thrives on everything she can pluck from reality and make eternal.

Clarke puts pencil to paper and looks up at Aden, takes in his poor balance on her padded chair, the meticulous way he picks up paint from the tray, a blue handprint complementing the thousands of paint stains on her apron. She smiles, starts drawing the scene in front of her, and around when she’s finishing sketching the easel, her mind is all but less of a roaring river, more of a quiet lake.

In the time they make art together, Clarke realizes how  _ chatty _ Aden is. He doesn’t really hold a conversation with her, too busy with his own artwork to do much more than occasionally ask for more paint or a different brush, but he narrates everything he’s doing, from picking up paint to wiping his hand on his apron. It’s beyond adorable and when Clarke has filled a whole spread with different versions of the scene in front of her, it’s also peppered with the most amusing things he’s said - her favorite one is the little  _ uh-oh _ he lets out every time he gets paint on his arm and needs to wipe it clean.

“All done!” Aden chirps up once he’s filled every inch of the canvas with different colors and Clarke gets up to see it, but he is climbing down the chair before she makes her way to the painting, “I’m hungry.”

Trying not to wince at the sight of colorful little handprints on her desk and chair, Clarke looks at Aden. “Okay, we need to get food in you then.” She considers giving him one of the snacks Lexa sent with him, but they’re probably not very tasty after staying in his backpack all day. “How about we clean you up and then you can help me cook dinner.”

Clarke leaves the art nook how it is, all covered in more paint than it’s ever seen, telling herself she’ll scrub it clean tomorrow, and peels the apron from Aden. He walks behind her towards the kitchen and Clarke glances over her shoulder when she hears a giggle to see him pressing his hands against each other, the half dry paint making them stick together.

It’s no wonder Raven loves this kid as much as she does - and it’s impressive that she managed to keep him hidden from her for as long as she did. As far as cute toddlers go, Aden would take the top without any worries.

Hoisting him up to the counter near the sink, Clarke helps him wash up, soaping his hands until all is left are shadows of green and blue paint stuck underneath his nails. When he asks  _ “what now? _ ”, Clarke isn’t really sure how to answer - what the hell does a three year old has for dinner and how can she make that when her pantry consists mostly of coffee and pancake mixes?

When the alternative is taking Aden to McDonald’s for dinner, Clarke settles for making mac and cheese out of the box. She knows for a fact he likes it and while it definitely won’t hold a candle to Lexa’s, it’ll have to do for now.

Clarke holds the pan under the faucet for Aden to fill it with water, making him laugh as she tells him  _ ‘a little bit more _ ’ each time he turns it off, and puts it on the stove to bring it to a boil. She makes sure to keep him as far away from the stove as possible, teaching him the two hand-clapping games she can remember until the macaroni is done cooking.

Her little helpers throws more butter than they could possibly need and they end up with more milk splattered on the floor then inside the pan, but the look of sheer glee in Aden’s face at the sight of the orange cheese powder, like they’re being naughty, is enough to make it all seem just short of perfect.

Jumping from the three foot counter and half landing on his feet, half falling to the floor gives Aden the most delightful laughing fit, so filled with childish joy that it has Clarke laughing along as she makes their plates. They take seats on the living room floor as Aden rides out the last of his giggles and scoots near the coffee table, where Clarke places his dinner before turning the TV on the first cartoon she finds.

Clarke has to nudge him every now and then for him to keep eating, the TV too much of a distraction for him to pay attention to his plate - and she probably shouldn’t, but she finds it the most adorable thing, the way he stares up with half chewed mac and cheese in his open mouth. He’s finishing up when Clarke’s phone pings with a message from Lexa, that says she’s on her way home and should be there in little less than twenty minutes.

Between dragging Aden away from the TV and going around the apartment picking up everything he brought with him, they’re out the door a solid fifteen minutes later.

Clarke locks up behind them and texts Lexa that they’re leaving her apartment when they’re in the elevator, trying to fit Aden’s tiny backpack, his other bag  _ and  _ her own in a way that allows her to grab his hand as they made their way back to the subway station. 

It’s almost funny to see his little legs working overtime to catch up on her grown up steps, and she needs to remind herself to slow down ever so often - they hadn’t exactly agreed upon a set time, but Clarke still feels like they’re running late.

Aden babbles about the cartoon episode he just watched, going on and on a character whenever Clarke makes a question, only pausing when they get to the ticket gate. He starts pulling on her hand, jumping up and down in excitement, glee lighting up his face. 

At that, Clarke slows down. She gives him her subway card, helps him pass them both through, crouches down beside him to talk about proper safety and yellow lines and letting people come out of the train before you try to get in. It’s simple and probably a good life skill for him to learn anyway, but Aden looks so utterly fascinated by it all that Clarke’s heart tugs a little.

They get inside the train and find a seat, but Aden insists in standing up through the whole ride, clinging to the pole for dear life, giving Clarke a tiny heart attack each time he sways. She pulls out her phone and snaps a few pictures of him laughing at the conductor’s announcements, even manages to get a short video of him telling his mom how much he’s enjoying the subway.

By the time they make their way up the stairs on their stop and into the busy evening street, all that adrenaline in Aden’s tiny little body has turned into drowsiness.

He drags his feet as he walks beside her, yawning into her arm and slowing down with each ten steps. Clarke pauses for a moment to look up where exactly they should be headed - six blocks down, three left, then another two and a half down - and looks over to find him crumbling to the floor, legs spread wide in front of him, head leaning on her thigh.

“Aden, bud?” Clarke nudges his shoulder just enough to wake him up and the deep, heavy sigh that leaves him makes her consider taking a cab for the short walk, “You okay to go home? Mommy is waiting for us.”

He sighs again, nodding as he peels himself from the ground and up to his feet. Clarke takes his hand to drag more than guide him down the streets, but they barely make it another full block before Aden slows down to a stop, untangles his hand from Clarke’s and lifts both his arms, “Up?”

The sight makes Clarke’s chest ache with a newfound love for the child in front of her.

She nods and numbles an  _ “of course, buddy, come here _ ” as she picks him up by his armpits and settles him on her arms. It takes a moment for her to find an easy position, but she ends up wrapping an arm around his waist, another supporting his butt as his legs hand on both sides of her, his head leaning on her shoulder.

The steady rhythm of her steps is enough to lull him into a deeper sleep, his whole body hanging heavy on her arms, but Clarke doesn’t mind the extra weight at all - not when his tiny fist clings to her shirt and she can hear him snoring lightly in his sleep, shifting whenever her shoulder becomes too uncomfortable.

Working with children for a whole year taught Clarke more than she thought she could ever know about these tiny little humans, but most of all, she learned how easy it was too fall in love with them. Sure, they can be a handful - tantrums test anyone’s sanity and the energy in them is enough to power a whole city. But they’re so delicate, so eager to soak in and learn everything around them, so quick to forgive, so ready to love.

And it took Aden a single afternoon to make Clarke want to protect him from any harm. Right now, with him drooling on her tee and murmuring nonsenses in his sleep, Clarke knows for a fact she’d fight anyone who tried to hurt him, would commit more than a handful of crimes if it meant keeping him safe.

She could never blame Lexa for wanting to keep her son as far away from her as possible - not after everything Clarke has put her through, after breaking her trust so deeply. But now… Now Clarke  _ understands _ it and that’s after one afternoon with him - she can only dare to imagine how protective a lifetime with Aden would make her.

It takes her longer than it normally would to walk the distance to Lexa’s house and quite a few tries to reach the doorbell with her elbow without bothering Aden. Clarke would have called to let Lexa know they were a few blocks away, but the sleeping toddler in her arms made it a little too difficult.

She listens for footsteps, but the door swings open before her ears can pick up anything. When Lexa comes into view, she understands why. She’s in that empty space in between getting home from work and changing into something more comfortable - Lexa still wears the same pencil skirt Clarke saw her in this morning, but shoes are gone and her curls fall over one shoulder.

“Hello,” Lexa says in a tone that’s somewhere past formal, just short of a question. She opens the door wider and steps aside for Clarke to walk in, her brows drawn together, her lips curling up ever so slightly, “What happened to him?”

Clarke adjusts her grip on Aden as Lexa steps closer to them both, leaning in to press a kiss to his forehead, “No naps and the excitement of riding the subway twice in one day took a toll on him.”

Lexa nods and runs her fingertips over Aden’s cheeks, half coaxing him awake, half lulling him further into sleep. If the closeness makes Clarke’s stomach swish and swirl as she catches the smell of Lexa’s shampoo, Clarke doesn’t even have it in her to lie to herself - this is what Lexa does to her, this is what her reaction will ever be.

The moment is broken when Lexa springs into action, prying the tiny backpack off Aden in a way only a  _ mom _ could, because Clarke spends half the time wondering if Aden won’t dislodge his shoulder with Lexa twisting his arm back that far. Soon, the backpack with his most precious toys is hanging off one of the hooks in the entrance hall and Aden is switching from Clarke’s arms to Lexa’s, his fist curling around a lock of hair as he settles down.

“I’ll tuck him in. Do you mind waiting a moment?” Lexa whispers, rocking from one side to the other in what looks like muscle memory from when Aden was a tiny fussing baby. Clarke half nods, half shakes her head, the invitation making her forget how to properly answer. But Aden blinks awake at the commotion, giving both of them something to focus on besides each other, “Hi, baby,” Lexa says, pressing a kiss to his temple as he mumbles something neither can understand, “Say  _ night night  _ to Clarke.”

Aden perks up, grinning up at her before flopping down Lexa’s shoulder again. “Night night, Clarke,” he says in a very sleepy voice, stretching his arm to wave at her, falling back asleep before Clarke can even wave back.

Lexa climbs up the stairs and Clarke stays rooted in place for a moment, her legs too heavy for her to move, her breathing too shallow for it to be enough. 

Lexa wants her to stay. 

The last few weeks, the last  _ month _ , Clarke spent most of her time wondering if she had really managed to make a small crack in Lexa’s walls, enough for it to be the beginning of something - earning her trust, her love back, begging for a friendship she knew she didn’t quite deserve - or if Lexa had just been glad her son was okay. But it gave Clarke hope, nonetheless.

And now, Lexa wants her to stay.

Wiping her sweaty palms on her pants, Clarke settles her bag on the floor under Aden’s backpack and takes the bigger bag with his change of clothes and all the leftover snacks to the kitchen for Lexa to go over later and decide what to keep and what to throw out. Then she turns around and forces herself to walk over to the living room area and sit down on the couch, to loosen the knots in her spine and neck, to at least pretend she’s not about to burst from her skin.

It was easier when she worked as an escort, to make herself comfortable wherever she went. People paid for her to act like she belonged to somewhere, to  _ someone _ , and she fell into that roll without thinking. It was a part that she played and was very good at it,

But now, she doesn’t have anything to hide behind - no mask, no pretenses, no contracts. And it’s hard to get comfortable in her own skin when it’s bruised and battered by all the sins she’s trying to put past her.

With a deep breath, Clarke looks at the wooden toys and children’s books piled on top of each other on the coffee table, glances up at the stairs with no sign of Lexa, then look at the books again. She catches a glimpse of a spine - blue, much too thick to belong to any child Aden’s age - and leans forward to grab it.

Who would think  _ Lexa Woods _ , the hotshot lawyer who read Russian literature in her spare time, could have an interest in Harry Potter? Clarke smiles to herself as she runs the pads of her fingers over the bold letters in the title, pulling at her memory to remember what happened in the past four books as she opens it on the first page. 

The bookmark tells her Lexa is right about three quarters into the book, and she holds it in place as her eyes run over the first page. Clarke had started to read the series when she was a teenager, got bored and gave up halfway through the third book, and fell in love with it all over again once her first grad school summer vacations came around and she didn’t have a job to go to.

Clarke had made her way through the first chapter and half the second one when she hears Lexa clearing her throat. She hadn’t heard any footsteps and looks up to find Lexa standing two feet away from her, “Sorry, I didn’t-” Clarke stutters, barely managing to keep a blush from creeping up her cheeks, “You were taking a while and I saw this book and I got caught up in it.”

As she closes the book, places it back on the coffee table and springs to her feet, Clarke can almost swear she sees Lexa smiling ever so slightly, but it’s gone when she meets her eyes. “It’s fine, Clarke,” Lexa says, clutching something in between her palms, “I just wanted to know how much I owe you.” Clarke glances down at the wallet Lexa is holding, then back up, her forehead wrinkling in a silent question that makes Lexa add: “For looking after Aden today.”

Oh. A cold feeling washes over Clarke at the same time her cheeks grows very warm. So that’s why Lexa wanted her to stay.

She wants to pay Clarke for her babysitting job. Nothing else.

“It’s nothing,” Clarke says as she shakes her head, prouder than she should be when she manages to keep her voice steady despite a nagging little voice inside her head. “It was incredible to spend time with him and all the hugs I got are payment enough.”

“ _ Clarke _ ,” Lexa says her name in a pointed tone, but Clarke can barely register it when her throat closes up at the way Lexa pronounces the  _ k _ in it, how she rolls her eyes at Clarke’s stubbornness, “Come on. I kept you away from your duties for a whole day and I know Aden isn’t easy to look after.”

Biting her lips to keep herself from blurting out that her previous plans for the day included binge watching Downton Abbey, Clarke waves her off. “Consider it a favor between friends, then,” Clarke glares at Lexa when she won’t put her wallet away, her eyebrows raised until Lexa settles it on the side table. After a beat, Clarke holds her breath, puts her pride aside for just this one moment and adds, “But I wouldn’t say no to a glass of wine.”

Lexa blinks. The suggestion catches her by surprised, that much is easy to tell when she has her mouth agape and deer-in-the-headlights look in her eyes. But after a moment considering it, Lexa nods, once, “I’ll be right back. Is rosé okay?”

“It’s perfect,” Clarke can’t keep the chirpiness from dripping into her voice as she settles back down on the couch - she’ll drink cheap vodka straight up if it means she gets to spend more time with Lexa.

Clarke fishes her phone from her pocket as she tries to quiet her heart. It’s pointless for it to be beating so fast, hammering against her ribcage in an almost painful way - Lexa is just grateful that her son is alive and well after spending the day out with a virtual stranger and Clarke didn’t quite left her many options when cornering her that way.

Still. A month or two ago, Lexa wouldn’t even imagine allowing Clarke to get within three feet of Aden, let alone care after him for a whole afternoon. A month or two ago, Lexa would have spat on Clarke’s face at the idea of spending any time with her.

It’s progress - even if it’s out of a feeling of duty or courtesy. It’s progress.

Clarke watches Lexa opening her fridge and pulling out a bottle of wine with maybe one glass short of being full, then go digging her cabinets for the proper glasses. A lot can change in six years, from the way you feel about someone to how you look at your career, but there’s something to imagining Lexa having a glass of wine every night - sometimes alone, sometimes with company, just winding down from the day she had. It’s something that might have only existed in Clarke’s mind, but she feels closer to the reality of these six years when she sees that it might be true after all.

Lexa brings the bottle along with two half full glasses, the peachy liquid sloshing inside it as she hands it to Clarke and sits beside her, back ramrod straight, feet pressed together - if it makes Clarke grieve a time she got to watch Lexa cross her legs under her and laugh until beer almost came out of her nose, she can’t do much besides take a sip of her wine. 

The silence in between them isn’t exactly comfortable, but it’s not heavy either, and that’s about as much as Clarke dares to ask these days.

“How was it, spending this afternoon with Aden?” Lexa prompts a split second before the silence grows awkward, settling the glass on her thigh and spinning it lazily by its long stem. She’s trying. She’s really, really trying and Clarke feels her chest expand as her heart doubles in size, presses up against her throat, makes it harder to breathe.

Breathing out as a smile crawls to her lips, Clarke lets her shoulders relax and turns more fully to Lexa. “It was good, it was-,” Clarke pauses, trying to find exactly what she wants to say, trying to convey the words to express how much it all meant to her, “I had forgotten how incredible it is to spend time with children, how much they can… I don’t know, heal you? If that makes sense?” Lexa nods, understanding, “And Aden is such a bright kid. I mean it. You’re doing a great job with him.”

Whatever dark cloud had been hovering above Clarke dissipates the moment Lexa smiles. “Thank you,” Lexa whispers and looks down at her wine in a way that makes Clarke wonder if anyone tells Lexa that, if they tell her often enough that she’s a good mom. “I wasn’t sure about letting him stay the day with you. We haven’t been close… in a while,” Lexa gives her a look that says a lot more than her words might, “But it seems to have been the right choice. He was half asleep and babbling about helping you cook dinner. I assume I’ll get a full recount from him tomorrow.”

“I know that must’ve been hard for you,” Clarke whispers quietly, her hand reaching out to touch Lexa’s hand, to comfort her somehow, to assure her that her son was never in any danger with her, but she takes it back before their skin touch. The air around them is charged as they both stare at Clarke’s hand for a moment - and she can’t tell if Lexa disgusted at the thought of their hands touching or daring her to do it. With a sharp intake of breath, Clarke reaches for her phone instead, “I do have pictures of him cooking, wait.”

Clarke scrolls through her camera roll, looking for pictures of Aden perched on the counter, smiling from ear to ear. If she takes a moment or two too long to find them, it serves to give her some time to breathe, to recover from the almost touch - which Clarke can only hope affect Lexa as much as it did her.

With butterflies still wreaking havoc in her stomach, Clarke scoots closer to Lexa so they both can look at the pictures. She pulls the first one from the batch of pictures she didn’t send to Lexa and it’s Aden sitting on the counter, his feet blurred because he was swinging them when Clarke took the picture.

She steals a look at Lexa and the sight steals her breath. Her eyes scan the whole picture, taking her son and his surroundings in, and her lips curl in a soft smile, her whole expression so filled with love that Clarke barely knows what to do with herself. 

When Lexa peels her eyes away to take another sip from her wine, Clarke changes the picture. It’s more or less the same, but this time Aden has his legs crossed under him, his hands clutching the packet of powdered cheese to his chest as they waited for their pasta to finish cooking.

Lexa makes a surprised noise and leans closer to Clarke to get a better look at the picture, pinching the screen so she can zoom into a blue shadow behind Aden, “Did you have boxed mac and cheese for dinner?”

Choking on her wine and coughing up painfully, Clarke tries to find an excuse. She doesn’t have any - Aden was hungry and she was exhausted, it was either that or driving him to the next fast food place. “Yeah, it is, sorry,” Clarke says, her voice a little rough from the cough and from being called out like this, “I panicked when he said he was hungry, and I didn’t know what to give him.”

“It’s fine, Clarke,” Lexa says, brushing it off easily. Her name falls out of her full lips in a familiar way, with less bitterness in it, more tender than she remembers. “I didn’t expect you to have grass-fed burgers to give him or anything like that.”

Clarke almost misses the way Lexa smiles at her, amused at the way she scrambles for an explanation, “I don’t think I even have veggies at home. Does he eat veggies?” Her go-to lunch is something from the salad bar that will fill her up until she can have popcorn for dinner, and for the first time she feels a bit ashamed at how she let her diet go these past few months. She has Raven to blame for at least a little bit of it.

“He does. He’s not big on zucchini, but he eats it too,” Lexa nods as she says it, looking at Clarke from behind her wine glass. There’s a vulnerability about Lexa sharing something as simple as what Aden likes to eat, letting Clarke get to know him a little bit more. There’s trust in her voice.

“Okay,” Clarke nods too, sipping at her wine, dwelling on whether she should say something else. Biting her cheek, she shoots her shot - she doesn’t have much to lose, “Next time I’ll have veggies for him.”

Lexa pauses for a beat. She stares at Clarke, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly as she takes her words in, the green in them so intense they could have been mistaken for a whole forest. Clarke wants to move, to fiddle with something, to shake off the feeling of being stripped bare. But she holds her ground and holds Lexa’s gaze, holds her own breath, torn between regretting the allusion and the urge to say more.

Then Lexa nods, once. “Next time I’ll let you know ahead of time so you can go groceries shopping.”

Letting out her breath in a relieved sigh, Clarke nods too, “Deal.” 

It’s nothing, but it’s everything. It’s an unspoken promise, a quiet sign of approval that makes Clarke’s head swim.

Because Clarke knows it took a lot of Lexa to let her look after Aden for the day and was probably worried sick the whole damn day, scared about what damage Clarke could have possibly done in one afternoon. And Clarke knows she dug her own grave all those years ago when she broke Lexa’s trust and shattered her heart in one swing, knows she shouldn’t have expected anything else - and she didn’t, she  _ didn’t _ ; she understood her doubts, didn’t blame her for them. But even the idea that maybe, someday, Lexa will trust Clarke with Aden again, is enough to bring something in her chest back to life.

The moment lingers, the air heavy with words that neither one of them is ready to say just yet.

But Clarke clears her throat once her phone screen goes dark, pressing a button to light it again so she can show Lexa the other pictures. If she scoots ever so closer, enough for their knees to touch and arms to brush, Clarke pretends it’s simply for Lexa to have a better look.

She feels the warmth coming in waves from Lexa as she shows her pictures of Aden making faces at his own painting, him swaying from one feet to another and humming a song from a cartoon, him sitting down on the chair with his arm up to reach the canvas. Clarke watches the way Lexa leans in towards her with a smile on her face as she finds the pictures of his finished painting, watches how her smile grows a little bit when Clarke promises to bring the paintings for her once they’re dry and varnished. 

Once they’ve gone through all the pictures and watched the short clips that Clarke took of Aden in the subway three times - Lexa’s smile grows bigger with each replay -, Clarke leans back slightly and turns to look at Lexa more fully, putting some space in between them. From her new position, Clarke gets to see Lexa’s face light up as she shares the stories Aden made up for her on the spot, the silly jokes that made him double down laughing, the conversations one can only have with a small child. When Clarke tells her about how good Aden got at their hand-clapping games, Lexa lets out a soft laughter, with her eyes closed and hand covering her mouth to keep wine from spilling out, and admits she never had the right hand coordination to teach him and sing at the same time so she had been waiting for someone at school to do it. 

It’s more information than Clarke knows what to do with. It’s more than she expected to get from Lexa ever again and she needs to swallow past the lump in her throat, force herself to keep her tears at bay, keep her smile from growing even more. Because Lexa is  _ laughing _ in the most carefree way she’s ever seen her do and she’s offering a something to Clarke, a little detail from hers and Aden’s life she didn’t have to and is willingly sharing.

Clarke wants to teach Lexa the hand-clapping game her son got so good at in so little time, wants to teach her how to clap to the rhythm of the song, wants to have her hand in hers again. Clarke wants to stay and talk the night away, but her wine glass is empty and she doesn’t have any excuse to be here for much longer.

The conversation dies down and Clarke sets her glass on the coffee table, in between a few books and wooden blocks half piled into a tower. She can’t help but imagine Lexa lying down on the couch on a Saturday night, reading a book and watching Aden put one block on top of the other, trying to build his tallest tower yet.

Getting up and turning her phone in her hand to keep her idle fingers from reaching out to Lexa, Clarke clears her throat, “I should go.” She wants to say she has a  _ lot  _ of cleaning up to do because she’s not used to having someone who needs constant attention over, but she doesn’t trust her voice to make it sound carefree, so she doesn’t add anything. 

Lexa sets her own glass on the table, tucks it neatly besides Clarke’s, and gets up. She wipes her palms on her thighs, holding Clarke’s eyes for a moment before nodding - once, in a short, almost military way that has always felt so intrinsically  _ Lexa _ \- and gesturing for her to go first. Clarke walks to the door, listening to the soft padding of Lexa’s feet against the bare floor with a smile, and shoulders her bag, ready to grab the subway back home and start cleaning. 

Opening the door for her, Lexa half leans against it, her hand still clutching the doorknob, “Thank you, for looking after Aden.”

Clarke waves her off absentmindedly, shaking her head. “It was nothing. I’m here, whenever you need me,” she says in a low, steady voice that she hopes conveys how much she means it. A little voice in her head laughs at herself because that’s  _ rich _ coming from the person who walked out on Lexa when she all but begged her to be there. But Clarke bites her cheeks and meets Lexa’s eyes, soaking in the green of them, “I got to see a lot of you in him. It’s a beautiful thing.”

She clutches the long strap of her bag for dear life, so tightly her knuckles flash white.

Lexa blinks at her, once, twice. Then a smile blossoms on her face, tugging her lips up as she looks down, like she’s embarrassed with the comment, like no one has ever told her that, like she herself has never noticed it. And Clarke finds herself mirroring the same smile - because Aden did almost the exact same thing when she complimented his painting.

For a moment, Clarke takes Lexa in. Her laughter lines are deeper now and Clarke can’t help but be proud of herself for putting a smile in her lips. Her cast down lids still carry the makeup from the day, a simple, almost smudged mascara that is telling of how much of a handful a toddler can be. Her lips are full and plum and before Clarke realizes it, her heart is running away from her, galloping in an insane rhythm at the memories and hopes mixed in her mind.

Then Lexa looks up.

And catches her staring.

Clarke doesn’t look away, only averts her eyes from Lexa’s lips back to her eyes, a quizzical look in them posing a question she can’t bring herself to answer. And for a split second, green eyes dart down to Clarke’s lips as well. And that single look sets something on fire within Clarke, burning her judgement and caution away, alighting a want, a  _ need _ that feels bigger than herself.

She takes a small step forward, closing the already small distance in between them, walking right into Lexa’s personal space. It’s been too long since she’s stood close enough to smell her perfume, to feel the warmth coming from her in waves, to know that she’d only need to lean in. 

Her heart hurtle up her chest, finding home in her throat, when Lexa doesn’t back away.

When the yelling, the cursing, the slamming doors doesn’t come, Clarke takes another step closer, lets out a fluttering breath and places a shaking hand right under Lexa’s ribcage. Memories she hasn’t allowed herself to dwell on lurch themselves at her, ripping at her edges, breaking her in half, and Clarke needs to blink them away. Instead, she focuses on the woman in front of her, lips parted, eyes wide in surprise, and leans in.

They come together in a soft, tentative touch, trying to work out through the months, years apart, finding the familiarity in each other again. It’s merely their lips brushing against one another, tasting one another for the first time in forever, but the small huff of air Lexa lets out is enough to make Clarke feel tears stinging the back of her eyes. 

Bringing her hand up to trace Lexa’s jaw and pressing her palm tighter against, Clarke feels each shallow intake of breath, every erratic heartbeat, hammering against her ribcage just like it did when they first made love, giving away everything Lexa fought so hard to hide, and she feels at home.

After six years, she finally feels at home.

Lexa reaches out to take Clarke’s cheek in her palm and adjust the angle of their kiss when her tongue peek out, tracing plum lips, asking for permission that is granted without any fuss. They fall into each other, like nothing has changed when everything has changed. Everything but the way Lexa makes her feel. 

When her heart presses against her windpipe, making it hard to breathe, and her legs threaten to give up on her, Clarke breaks the kiss and leans back to look at Lexa, to gauge what she makes of it. But oh,  _ oh- _ Lexa chases her lips and kisses her again, not quite ready to let go yet. And Clarke lets herself sink into it, enjoy the way Lexa tugs her ever so closer, how their lips fit perfectly together.

She has dreamed about it a thousand times over. She’s not about to deprive herself of Lexa simply because the little nagging voice in the back of her head is telling her she’s screwing everything up and ruining whatever progress she’s made in the last few months. If this is her last glimpse at heaven, she’ll take it.

Then Lexa breaks the kiss, takes in a sharp breath and stumbles a step backwards, her back hitting the door. Clarke watches her face for any signs of regret, frozen in place, but she only finds surprise swimming in her eyes, maybe a little shock.

She reckons her own face can’t be much different.

Her heart wriggles itself in her chest, longing to get closer to Lexa once more, but Clarke holds her ground, swallows past the growing lump in her throat and forces herself to speak. “I should probably go.”

It’s not that she expects Lexa to ask her to stay, offer her another glass of wine so they can talk for a little while longer. She doesn't. But it still stings when Lexa nods and clears her throat, licking her lips before saying, “Yes. You probably should.”

Clarke hears the door closing softly behind her once she makes it to the street and makes a turn towards the subway, and she can’t help imagining Lexa watching her go. Every step is an uphill battle with her heart writhing and screaming at her for walking away once again.


	7. (third) first date

“You kissed her?!” Raven yells in surprise, the water she had just gulped trickling down her neck. Clarke nods, pacing from one side of the living room to another, her stomach in knots as she relives that night and tells Raven, “And then what?”

Raven settles down on the couch again, stretching her bad leg out and putting it on the coffee table with an ease that only comes with summer. Clarke gives her a tentative glance before resuming her pacing, wriggling her hands together, “Then I left.”

“You  _ left _ ?” Raven yelps again in disbelief. “Griffin, what the  _ fuck _ ?”

“What was I supposed to do?”

The question has been plaguing Clarke’s mind ever since she heard Lexa close the door on her, well over a week ago. She has played that night over and over again, searching for any indication that she should have- could have acted differently. Should they not have kissed? If they hadn’t kissed, would Lexa have answered her calls? 

Because they had made more progress in one night than in the last six months - Lexa had trusted her with her son, for one thing, and they had talked, promises of more nights like that hanging in the air. But then Clarke kissed her - and Lexa kissed her back, oh she kissed her back - and left, and might have ruined everything.

“I don’t know,” Raven shrugs, watching Clarke work a kink on her neck and trace her path back to the other side of the living room, “Kiss her again? Go back inside to talk? I don’t  _ know _ , but leaving isn’t exactly the answer.”

Clarke nods, fighting the way her breath catches in her chest, forcing her lungs to work. She wipes her palms on her thighs and if her heart pounds at the mere thought of kissing Lexa again, Clarke doesn’t dare to tell it to quiet down. “I need Anya’s advice.”

“Well, thank you very much for dismissing my expertise,” Raven says with feigned outrage, scoffing at Clarke before taking another sip from her water, avoiding eye contact. Clarke can’t help but laugh at the theatrics, knowing Raven doesn’t mean half of it.

“Oh, shut up,” Clarke says in the middle of a chuckle, feeling some of the tension leak out of her, “I need to know how Lexa is and Anya working alongside with her all day gives her an edge.”

It doesn’t quite feel right, to come to Anya for this. Clarke had promised Anya she wouldn’t ask anything about Lexa ever again, but she had also promised to keep her distance from Lexa and then kissed her anyway.

“I can tell you how she is,” Raven’s voice has an authority to it that Clarke can’t help but wonder if she had seen Lexa lately, “She is a mess. But the good kind of mess.”

It doesn’t help Clarke’s nerves.

Letting out a shaky breath that sends sharp pains to her chest, Clarke plops down on the couch. “Is Anya home?”

“Yeah, she’s in the office. She still doesn’t like you that much,” Raven says in a casual voice and Clarke isn’t surprised by the fact. Anya has never been subtle about her dislike of Clarke. But still, Raven shouts towards the general direction of the office, “Babe?” There’s a moment’s pause, then a muffled  _ yeah? _ comes through to them, “Clarke is here.”

“ _ I know, that’s why I’m in here _ .”

Raven lets out a laughter, whispering to her, “She’s good, isn’t she?” Clarke nods halfheartedly, hardly finding it amusing how much Anya hates her. “Can you come here for a sec?”

Clarke strains her ears for an answer but there’s none. She’s nearly giving up on Anya coming when she hears heels clicking against the hardwood floor. Anya doesn’t come closer than the arch the separates the living room from the rest of the house, leaning against it with her arms folded on her chest. She’s still on her work clothes, pantsuit and a button up shirt tucked into it, hair in a braided bun as tight as the look in her eyes.

“What does she want?” Anya asks Raven, clearly not wanting to do as much as talk directly to Clarke.

It amuses Raven, that much is clear. She lies back down on the couch and gestures for Clarke to take the stage. “Lexa and I kissed, the day I looked after Aden,” Clarke starts, giving her a moment to connect the dots - after all,  _ Anya _ had been the one to text Clarke from Lexa’s phone, which now seems as unlikely as Lexa texting that message herself.

Anya doesn’t seem surprised at all and while Clarke wasn’t expecting a reaction like Raven’s, she certainly didn’t see the shrug coming. “I know.”

“You  _ know _ ?” Clarke repeats, to make sure she isn’t hearing things.

Raven settles her water bottle on the side table with a loud  _ thud _ , sitting up in indignation, “You  _ knew _ and didn’t tell me?” Raven says in a high pitched voice, “Okay, why am I the last to know this? What the actual living fuck, you two?”

Anya doesn’t take her eyes off Clarke while her live-in girlfriend yells at her, “Do you really think Lexa would be able to hold that in for too long? Do you know her at all?”

“I- I don’t know,” Clarke has trouble keeping her mind in the moment. She imagines Lexa knocking on Anya’s door and locking it behind her, pacing from one side to the other much like Clarke did, talking about  _ them _ in a messy babble as she herself tries to make sense of what happened, tries to reconcile what she feels with what history tells her. “I didn’t think-”

“Clearly.” Anya clicks her tongue. “But you two kissed. And I’m not saying I’m happy with it, because you fucked up more times than I can count. But you need to get a grip.” She looks at Clarke and forces her to hold her gaze, as if that will make her words get through to her head, “You both do, because I can’t take Lexa for much longer.”

“Is she-” Clarke feels her breath catching again, making it hard to focus. She knows she fucked up, both in the distant past and in the very near one. But she’s called Lexa nearly every day since they kissed, giving up a couple days ago when she had memorized Lexa’s voice mail message, “Should I call her again? She’s been ignoring my calls, I don’t know what to do.”

“Try again. She needed some time to work through it all, because that kissed crumbled her resolve to hate you. Which is a pity.” Her words are harsh, but her tone betrays her. “Text her, go over to the office, hire a goddamn plane to write a message in the sky. I don’t  _ care _ , just fix it. I need my lawyer back.” Anya rolls her eyes and turns around, the conversation officially over, but she looks back over her shoulder one last time, “You have a chance. A real one, this time. Don’t fuck it up.”

Clarke listens as the steps get further away and a door slams closed. Only then she realizes how clammy her palms are, and wipes them again on her thigh, “That was... comforting.”

“It’s more than I was expecting. You must be growing on her.” Raven tilts her head to Clarke and gives her an encouraging smile, before frowning again, “Now let’s get back to why has no one told me about it.”

Chuckling, Clarke lets herself plop down on the couch and tries to explain why she couldn’t quite get her body to stop vibrating for long enough for her to form the words. It feels weirdly nice, to sit down and babble about the girl she kissed. Raven grabs a pillow and hugs it, squealing at all the right moments and reassuring Clarke that Lexa “ _ totally” _ likes her too, and it’s almost like she’s finally having all the girl talks she never really had in high school. 

She certainly has the butterflies and nervous energy that matches it all.

At some point during their evening together, after eating Thai food leftover from who knows when and talking shit about the most terrible students they share, Clarke gets the courage to pick up her phone and open the message thread with Lexa. It’s nothing more than the pictures Clarke sent her. She hadn’t even thought about  _ texting _ Lexa, simply because she doubted she’d get any answer at all.

Her thumbs hover over the keyboard, trying to think of something to send her in the short time Raven gets up to get them drinks - La Croix, because they both need to get up tomorrow and are trying to cut down on their soda consumption.

_ “is it okay if I drop by your office tomorrow, around 4pm? _ ”

Clarke hits send before she can overthink it. It’s better than to have an entire conversation through text - she needs to be face to face with Lexa, needs to be able to tell tone and facial expressions, needs more than just words on paper. And it’s definitely better than to barge into her office unannounced.

Almost as an afterthought, Clarke sends another message -  _ “or another time, whenever works for you _ ” - because yeah, by 4pm she’s already out of class and can make her way to the office without hurrying. But she doesn’t mind playing hooky if it means she gets to talk to Lexa.

By the time she leaves Raven’s - at nearly nine in the evening, which is too late for someone who needs to be at work shortly after six in the goddamn morning if she wants to have everything done before her students get there - Clarke has all but given up hope. She drives herself home to the sound of a playlist that is bound to make her cry in the shower and tries to keep herself busy on the way by mentally assigning grades to her students.

She’s halfway through considering making a note about Diyoza’s skills when it comes to anatomical proportions so she can talk to her in the next class when her phone chimes with a new text and her eyes dart towards the lit screen on the dashboard.

_ “Sure. 4pm sounds good. _ ”

Her heart pounds steadily against her ribcage all the way home and seems to stay like that until she falls asleep. 

If she makes it to school without her heart randomly starting to beat just slightly too fast, just slightly off kilter, it’s because she’s too sleepy. But as soon as caffeine hits her, her heart wakes up, seems to remember she’s seeing Lexa in less than ten hours, and pounds in hopeless abandon inside her chest, in a staccato that has her gasping for air.

When the final bell rings and the kids pack their bags, flocking out of her classroom in a lazy, tired way, Clarke can’t quite tell how she’s managed to make it through the day. She taught each class maybe a little too distractedly, ate her lunch with maybe a little too much difficulty, caught herself staring at those four little words from Lexa’s text maybe a little too often.

Usually, she’d stay behind to put everything away, maybe grade some papers from her Art History students or make some notes on the exposition she’s been planning for her senior students, stretching the work day for as long as she could to keep herself busy. But today, she grabs her bag and all but flees the classroom, almost forgetting to close the door behind her, her heart falling back to what seem to be its new normal.

Her wrist watch tells her she has a little over half an hour to make it halfway across the city.

Calling an Uber and asking the driver to please,  _ please _ get her to that address within half an hour - to which he answers, in a thick Boston accent that reminds her of home, that he can do that with time to spare - Clarke digs through her bag to find her hand mirror. 

During her time as an escort, she really did hone down how to do her makeup in a speeding vehicle, with all the potholes New York has to offer. But she doesn’t really have the  _ time _ or the tools to contour her face and put on shiny eyelids, so she simply tries to salvage anything from what she’s done in the morning, deciding the light mascara and ten hour old eyeliner will have to do for now.

It’s not really that big of a deal, because Lexa has seen her with barely any makeup after running around her four year old all afternoon. Lexa has also seen her without any makeup at all, waking up in her arms, but that’s too far in the past and too delicate of a memory for Clarke to tug on now, but she still wants to make a damn good impression.

She takes her hair out of the ponytail its been in all day, running her fingers through it to undo any knots, half braiding it to the side so it doesn’t have any weird curls and, with a final look at the mirror before the driver pulls over, Clarke decides she look pretty decent.

Until she notices she has paint on her jeans.

Even with the universe laughing at her, Clarke manages to get to the office in one piece. Her heart went from almost gentle, if a little off beat drumming to doing somersaults in her chest, and she has to swallow twice before asking the secretary to tell Lexa she’s here to see her only to keep bile from rising to her throat. 

After what feels like an hour of waiting, but really couldn’t have been more than a couple minutes in which Clarke managed to go through ten different scenarios in which Lexa throws her off her window for some reason, the secretary buzzes her in. 

Her legs feel like lead, but they still carry her to the office she’s avoided every time she’s been to this building. The door is open and Clarke takes one last deep breath before knocking on the jamb, poking her head inside.

Lexa lifts her gaze from the papers in front of her and looks up, taking her visitor in for a moment. “Clarke,” Lexa says in lieu of hello, pushing her chair back and getting up, “Please, come in.”

With her heart buzzing in her ears, Clarke walks the length of the office at the same time Lexa circles her desk, leaning against it. 

There’s a striking difference between them that makes her head swim.

Keeping her shoulders drawn back and chin held high, Clarke knows she’s simply pretending to have the same confidence she had six years ago, when fear of rejection had never been part of her vocabulary. And Lexa, folding her feet in front of her and settling her palms on the edge of the desk in an effortlessly cool way, seem to have found that confidence she herself always pretended to have.

Not to mention their outfits. Anyone who looks at Clarke in her red chucks and jeans with the cuffs rolled up can guess she’s from a whole different world than Lexa, dressed in killer heels and button down blouse tucked in a pencil skirt.

“Hey,” Clarke manages as she gets close enough to Lexa to see the specks of gold in her green eyes, “How are you?”

The corner of Lexa’s lips tilt up in amusement, like she can see right through her and her lame question. “I’m good,” Lexa answers simply. She doesn’t ask how Clarke is and she doesn’t volunteer the information, which is good, because she might vomit if she has to make small talk. “About your calls, I wanted to say-”

“Would you like to go on a date with me?” 

They both blurt out at the same time, Lexa in a gentle tone, Clarke in a word vomit that would spook anyone. It takes a moment for her to strain through the loud, rhythmic thud in her ears and realize what Lexa had said - something about her calls,  _ oh no _ , was she being rejected before she even got the words she’s rehearsed and changed and went back on for the past week out?

Clarke blinks at Lexa, waiting - for an answer, for her to finish her thought, for  _ something _ . But she can see, in the way Lexa raises her eyebrows and drops her jaw slightly, that whatever was going on in her mind vanished, leaving nothing but mist and dust behind.

After a beat, Clarke keeps going, adamant in getting all the words out, “A real one, this time,” she starts, still talking about their possible date, “Where we eat together, we talk about what kept us apart and is still keeping us apart, and we kiss each other goodnight.”

Even the mere thought of kissing Lexa again has Clarke’s legs threatening to give up from under her.

Lexa doesn’t answer, her lips still parted in surprise, her eyes scanning hers for the answer to a question Clarke doesn’t know. The seconds stretch by between them, close to turning into minutes, and Clarke wants to crawl out of her skin, forget this ever happened, either move on for good or take a few steps back.

Because she wants Lexa in her life, in whatever form she can get. She wants Aden in her life as well, and Raven and even Anya, and she might lose it all if it goes south.

She’s about to take that silence as enough answer and find the nearest bar to drown her sorrows in, but then- there’s a different sparkle in Lexa’s eyes as they dart to her lips. And that’s it.

Taking the smallest step forward and giving up on getting her heart to stop hammering its way out of her chest, Clarke tries to find her voice amidst her panic. “I know I fucked up. I know I ruined what we had and every chance I had after that. But…” her voice comes out in a whisper, like anything louder than this will break her, but she smiles as the next words come to life, “You kissed me back. I’m not sure if it meant anything to you, but if it did, if you think there’s any reason to give us another shot-” Clarke swallows, finding Lexa’s eyes and locking them with hers, “I’d like to take you out. On a date. Where I’ll cook.”

The answer comes easy this time, slips past Lexa’s lips and into her soul, “Okay.”

“Okay?” Clarke parrots back, making sure her ears didn’t betray her, “Are you saying yes? To a date?”

Her hopes had been so low that the answer truly takes her aback. But then Lexa smiles, in that soft way of hers where her eyes close for the briefest of moments, and everything is right where it’s supposed to be. “Yes, Clarke. I am.”

Clarke blinks away the stubborn tears prickling the back of her eyes and lets herself smile, truthfully and wide. “Are you free this Saturday? Around 8pm, my place?”

Lexa simply nods, pushing away from the desk so they’re standing even closer - which isn’t really helping Clarke’s heart remember what’s like to have a normal rhythm, “Text me your address. I’ll be there.”

Clarke turns on her heels to leave the office, but pauses on the doorway and looks back, waving Lexa goodbye. As her hand is going side to side, Clarke feels her insides turning into a prune with not-so-secondhand-embarrassment - of all the ways she could have said goodbye, she picks a goddamn wave. But relief washes over her when Lexa smiles, clearly amused, and gives her a soft wave back.

She could get used to being silly if Lexa gave her that same smile often enough.

Her next few days are spent in a weird mix of happiness and nausea, the clock either ticking too fast or minutes taking hours to crawl around it. 

She texts Lexa her address, writing it and erasing it and rewriting it around seven times before she settles in a proper formatting, adding a smiling emoji at the end of it only to regret her choice the moment she presses send. It says  _ delivered _ soon after, but she never gets an answer. Which absolutely does not keep her from opening the thread every few hours, just in case she missed a notification.

After worrying herself sick about what dish she should cook, Clarke spends Friday evening sorting through her ideas with Raven. They stay in Clarke’s apartment, because even the thought of running into Lexa at Anya’s makes her nausea come back in full force. She figures she’s not banned from spending time there anymore, considering Lexa can’t hate her guts that much, but she doesn’t know what the hell she’d do if she did see Lexa before Saturday - pretend they don’t have a date in a few days? talk about it? not talk at all? - so it’s better if she stays home.

Besides, Clarke has some serious cleaning to do. 

It’s not that she’s living in a garbage pile, but she’s seen how pristine Lexa keeps her apartment. So Raven sits on her couch - feet up, because Clarke is vacuuming - and browses through Pinterest, shouting out ideas every now and then, tossing some awful tips on how to make this first date a success in between as well.

Her shelves are dusted and reorganized when Raven makes a case for sweet potato, kale and shrimp skillet, and Clarke pauses with a book in each hand to tell Raven that Lexa is allergic to shrimp, almost proud of herself for remembering a detail told to her in passing so long ago. She’s halfway through scrubbing the kitchen clean when she tunes out a long winded description of a three course meal that involves veal, too many veggies and panna cotta. All the paintings - that Clarke has left scattered all over the apartment under the excuse of not having anywhere to put them - find their places pretty easily by the spot in between the shelves and her work desk, her easel sitting somewhat awkwardly against the glass panels that separate her room from the rest of the apartment. She’s so focused on making it stand still that she doesn’t hear Raven talking about making gnocchi from scratch.

When she finally considers her apartment as organized as she can get it, Clarke plops down beside Raven, stealing her beer and taking a long swig from it despite the distraught cursing she gets. Giving Raven back her beer, Clarke sighs and snuggles down in between her and the couch, her body too exhausted from all the cleaning, her mind still wired about not knowing what to cook.

Raven scrolls down yet another list - this one called  _ “ten impressive (but oh so easy) date night recipes _ ” - and Clarke is almost giving up when she sees something that catches her eyes.  _ Skillet pizza _ . She darts her eyes through the recipe, catching a few details here and there, noting that the dough is homemade and needs to rest for twelve hours at least -  _ fuck _ \- and she does not have half the ingredients she’d need.

But this is it.

She’s making pizza.

Her heart skips frantically in her chest, bouncing off her ribcage and rising to her throat. 

Last time Clarke had tried to replicate what they had in the past with food, she ended up alone and confused in the middle of a Chinese restaurant. But it feels different, somehow. It feels right.

Clarke thinks about toppings they ordered - half sloppy Joe, half Spanish tapas, something worthy of a college kid with the munchies - and giving her slice for Lexa to try it like a real girlfriend would. She remembers running her fingertips on Lexa’s bare thigh, slung across hers as they both fought the food induced coma they were teetering towards. She can almost see Lexa dabbing her napkin on top of the pizza to get the grease off, hear her opening up about what made her  _ her _ .

She wants that night again.

A shiver runs down her spine when she thinks about how many ways this could go wrong, part of her thinking giving Lexa  _ shrimp _ might be a smarter idea.

But in twenty minutes, Clarke is walking into a twenty-four-hour grocery store, with shopping list and a grumpy Raven trailing behind her, promising to kill her if she makes her knead any dough at half past eleven on a Friday night.

When Saturday evening rolls around, Clarke is little more than fraying nerves. 

She has slept her morning away after staying up until two working on the dough - granted, she spent over an hour psyching herself about her ability to actually  _ do it _ \- and then some more, staring at the wall, wondering if pizza really was the right choice. Breakfast turned into lunch as she wasted her afternoon watching Law & Order reruns and keeping her pencil on her sketchbook at all times, taking turns between drawing whatever was on TV and jolting down notes for her classes the upcoming week.

Then she showered, spent a good half an hour wrapped in a towel, staring at her closet, trying to figure out what to wear. She ended up picking her black leather shorts that go with everything and a slightly oversized button down shirt that she could tuck into them and roll the sleeves so nothing gets in the way of her cooking.

Clarke hasn’t felt this nervous about a date since she was in high school. 

More than anything, she wants to make a good impression, wants to make this  _ right _ . 

But that ends up with her slipping flip flops on instead of the heels she had set aside and grabbing a rag to sweep off inexistent dust from the shelves one last time, reorganizing the books in a less obvious manner. She picks a few books and settles them on the coffee table, to make it look like she’s been reading them - which isn’t a complete lie, but the ones she’s currently in the middle of are stashed underneath her bed. Then adjusts her potted plant just a hair to the side, moves the pillows around, folds the blanket once, twice, drapes it over the back of the couch.

After a good deal of panic induced cleaning, when she’s feeling calmer, if a little silly about it all, Clarke looks at the watch on her wrist. Her stomach sinks. Unless the old thing has broken once again, she’s  _ very _ behind on what she had planned to do. She wanted to have the pizzas in the oven by the time Lexa knocks on her door, which won’t happen unless she’s forty five minutes late.

Clarke hurries to the kitchen, throwing the dusting rag behind the fridge as she opens it to pull out everything she needs - eggplant, Swiss chard, tomatoes, onions. She tosses them on the counter and quickly washes her hand, throws the dish towel over her shoulder and grabs the dough the left resting overnight inside the oven. 

With a deep breath, Clarke forces herself to focus. She grabs the dough and splits it in half, kneading each of the little balls in turn before reaching for her skillets. She coats them with oil, puts half the dough in each one, coats the tops with oil as well and flattens the dough until they’re resembling circles, setting them both aside to double in size as she works on the sauce.

Having the good sense to put an apron on, because heavens know she can ruin anything she’s wearing while making tomato sauce, Clarke pauses for a moment to put some music on. Her best cooking is done while singing along to some good ol’ tunes.

Unlocking her phone, she sees her message thread with Lexa. They have exchanged a few more messages earlier that day, and Clarke groans at how long it took her to find an answer to Lexa’s  _ “should I bring anything tonight _ ?” text. She ended up going with  _ “nothing but yourself and a hungry belly _ ” which is a less than clever answer. All of these little details make her feel like a teenager again, overthinking each message, over analyzing every word.

Clarke clicks away from the message thread and opens her music app, finding one of her favorite playlists, hooking her phone up on her bluetooth speaker and letting the music fill the small apartment as she cuts up the tomatoes.

_ I met you in the dark, you lit me up. You made me feel as though I was enough. _

Her sauce is already well into thickening when there’s a knock on the door. 

The music is low enough that Clarke has no problems hearing it, but it still takes her a few moments to get to the door. She lowers the heat on the burner and wipes her hands on a dish towel before throwing it on the oven handle, giving the apartment one last look over before she goes to the door with her heat in her throat and her flip flops clapping on her feet.  _ Shit _ .

With one last deep, steadying breath, Clarke opens the door. 

She finds Lexa standing a foot away from the door, her back ramrod straight, and Clarke takes her in for a moment. From her moccasin shoes and ripped black jeans to her cold shoulder top and hair falling in gentle waves over her shoulder, Lexa looks nothing short of perfect. It’s a crude, overused word, but Clarke deems it worthy of it when her palms grow cold and sweaty, and her heart skips a beat before pounding steadily against her ribcage.

“You made it,” Clarke smiles, stepping aside for her to get inside. She thinks about changing her shoes once they’re inside, but that thought is forgotten when she notices Lexa’s knuckles flashing white as she grips the neck of a wine bottle with a little too much force. “Did you find it alright?”

It’s a dumb question, because anyone with a phone can find virtually any place on Earth, but Lexa simply nods, “Yes, no trouble at all.” Shifting her coat on her arm and holding it in place with the bottle of wine, Lexa holds out the flowers for Clarke to take once she closes the door behind them. “These are for you.”

“Oh.” Clarke holds them in her arms, careful not to wrinkle the kraft paper wrapped around them. Barely recognizing most of them, she touches the velvety lily petal as she takes in the daisies and gardenias, the baby breath decorating them. “Thank you.. They’re… they’re beautiful, Lexa.” Their eyes meet and Clarke holds her breath, all her nervous energy falling from her in waves as she breathes out. “Come on in, I’m a little late with dinner.”

Walking inside her apartment and making her way to the kitchen, Clarke lowers her face to the bouquet, breathing the subtle perfume in. She can’t remember ever getting flowers - at least, never from someone who meant them as a gift as precious as this is.

Shifting her coat from one arm to the other and adjusting the grip on the bottle of wine, Lexa follows her, “It’s no problem at all. I’m in no hurry.”

Clarke looks back over her shoulder, not even bothering to try and hide the smile that beams across her face, “That’s good to hear. I’ll put these in some water.” She places the flowers on her table and rummages through the cupboards, trying to find something she can use as a vase. “Make yourself comfortable. How’s Aden?”

It takes her a moment to find a pitcher that will do. She fills it with some tap water and brings it over to the table as Lexa settles the wine bottle near it, untangles her coat from her arm and half folds it before hanging it on the back of a chair. 

Clarke takes her time to undo the knot holding the kraft paper together, unfold the paper, reveal the flowers in all their beauty. It’s all slow movements and thought out touches as she picks each one and places them in water, very aware that Lexa is watching her every move.

“He’s good. He still hasn’t stopped talking about your day together,” Lexa answers her question after a moment, both of them staring at the flowers - they brighten up the place like nothing else could. Or maybe that’s just Lexa, Clarke can’t be quite sure. “When I left, he was giving Harper a full report again.”

Clarke chuckles, something inside her warming at the thought of Aden babbling about his subway trip and painting on a real canvas, “He’s so precious.” She runs her fingertips on the foliage falling over to the sides before looking at Lexa, “And so are these flowers, Lex. Thanks.”

Something seems to take Lexa aback - either the compliment or the flowers - and she shrugs slightly, suddenly very interested on the wine label, “They’re just flowers.”

Biting the inside of her cheek to keep her breath from shaking, Clarke doesn’t allow herself more than a second to think about it before she touches Lexa’s chin with her fingertips in the same way she did with the flowers, tilting it up until their eyes meet again, “They’re more than that, and you know it.”

The moment hangs in between them.

Clarke lets her hand fall to her side and maps Lexa’s face, watching her eyes - framed by beautiful makeup that brings out the green in them - locked with hers, her lips mouthing words that don’t come out. 

At last, with a shaky breath, Lexa seems to find her voice, “What can I help you with?”

Those words seem to turn a light within Clarke, who suddenly remembers the sauce she left unattended on a burner for the better part of ten minutes. “ _ Shit, shit, shit, _ ” She murmurs under her breath and her eyes grow wide as she half sprints towards the stove, pulling the pot from the heat and checking it with a wooden spoon. It’s on the verge of burning and it’s too thick to do much, but there still hope. Clarke looks at Lexa, who’s looking at her with her hands folded on her back and an amused glint in her eyes. “Uh, maybe you could cut up the eggplants in little cubes as I finish the sauce.”

Lexa nods and crosses the distance to the sink, dutifully washing her hand as Clarke leans down to grab a knife for her, settles it by the cutting board with all the eggplants and turns back to pour some water in a measuring cup.

“ _ I cook as good as I look _ ,” Lexa says, looking at the apron she’s wearing, and it takes Clarke more than a moment to realize Lexa is simply reading the saying on it. Looking down, Clarke takes in her own apron - it was a gift from Raven, along with another one that estimated how long until a steak was done in beers, after Clarke worked the grill on a barbecue with people from school. Lexa raises an eyebrow, “Is that right?”

Clarke pours the water into the sauce, mixing it in before returning it to the burner, her confidence slightly shaken. “I guess you’ll have to wait and see,” she says nonetheless before reaching out behind her to undo the knot on her apron, carefully slipping it over her head and tossing it to a corner of the counter they’re not using.

The effect isn’t quite the same without her heels on, but Clarke sees the way Lexa takes her in, lingering a moment longer on her legs before turning to her eggplants. “What are we having?”

Clarke tries to hide her smile as she watches Lexa’s razor sharp focus on cutting the stem from the eggplant. “Skillet pizza. Homemade dough and everything,” Clarke says, checking on her sauce as Lexa makes a little sound of approval in the back of her throat. Relief washes over her. “You’re really good with a knife.”

Lexa has cut the eggplant in half, then cut one of them in half an inch slices before grabbing some of them and turning them on their side to make strips. It’s something worthy of a cooking show, the way she rocks her knife back and forth, how her hand is positioned, her grip on the knife. “You sound surprised.”

“Um, yeah,” Clarke agrees, because this is nothing short of a surprise. A sizzling sound makes her turn her attention to the sauce again as she says, almost offhandedly, “Do you remember how bad you were at cooking?”

She regrets the words as soon as they leave her lips, her chuckle still echoing in the kitchen.

Because she didn’t mean to bring up the past so early in their date. They’d eat first, talk about what they’ve done during the week, share something small here and there - only then, only  _ after _ , they’d sit down to talk about it all.

Clarke feels every muscle in her body tense up, her shoulder blades pulling together as if she’s trying to make herself smaller when she turns to look at Lexa. Her knife is halfway down, hanging in midair, trembling slightly in her grip.

“I actually learned how to cook using the cookbook you gave me that Christmas,” Lexa says, settling her knife down. Clarke holds her breath when she sees a little smile in Lexa’s lips, that steadily grows to something akin to a grin, “That and watching cooking shows when Aden wouldn’t sleep.”

“He had trouble sleeping?” Clarke asks once her throat is free from the tennis ball sized knot that had found its way there, turning away to sample the sauce.

“Yes. From six months old up to almost two years old, he’d go to sleep at seven and wake up at eleven, ready to play,” Lexa says, her smile still very much in place as she resumes chopping the eggplants, turning the strips on their side so she can cut them into cubes, “So I’d take him to the living room, spread all his toys on the floor and watch cooking shows to keep myself awake.”

Clarke bends down to pick up the salt and pepper so she can season the sauce. If it gives her a moment to blink away the stupid tears pooling in her eyes, she’s thankful for it. Because Lexa is trying - it’s uncomfortable and it takes a lot of her to share something as simple and as huge as Aden’s early life, but she’s really, truly trying.

When her eyes are dry enough, Clarke comes back up, sprinkling some salt into the sauce before she finds the nerve to look at Lexa. 

“That must have been a rough time. Even more so as a single parent.” Clarke offers and Lexa nods, still working on the eggplants, the ghost of a smile still on her lips. It’s a beautiful sight, and Clarke forces herself to focus on that and not on the image of Lexa having to care after a insomniac one year old on her own, with no one to alternate nights with, no one with whom to share this burden. “And then you cooked?”

“At first, I just watched the shows, but after a while, it didn’t help me stay up anymore. So I started cooking,” Lexa says, rounding her eggplants on the center of the cutting board before looking at Clarke, frowning slightly as she meets her eyes. Clarke blinks faster, half wishing she had a cut up onion she could blame. “There were some near disasters, but I got better. Aden liked to help with baking the most, so we did that. Some days, I’d be four in the morning and I’d have enough muffins to feed the whole firm.” Sucking her bottom lip in between her teeth as if physically stopping herself from saying more, Lexa turns to her eggplants and shows them to Clarke, “Are these too big?”

They’re perfect.

Clarke tastes her sauce one last time before setting it aside and grabbing a baking sheet to put the eggplants on, so they can go in the oven for a little while fore they assemble their pizza. They don’t talk for a little while as Lexa scoops the cubed eggplants into the tray and Clarke lather them with olive oil and spread them evenly.

“You did a great job learning how to cook, these look professionally cut,” Clarke says as she puts the baking sheet in the oven, setting the timer for little over twenty minutes. 

She looks up just in time to see Lexa turning away with a tiny smile on her lips. Clarke grabs another skillet and adds some oil and garlic she had chopped beforehand, her eyes never quite leaving Lexa, who seems very busy cleaning her working area.

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Clarke,” Lexa says with what’s supposed to be a stern look, but comes across as a light teasing one.

“Won’t it?” Clarke asks, her hands stilling as she holds Lexa’s gaze. Her own smile grows as Lexa tries to fight hers, almost rolling her eyes. She only breaks it when her garlic becomes fragrant and ready for the chard to be added. “You can open the wine while I work on the chard, if you want. Just… make yourself at home.”

Clarke focuses on adding the chard into the skillet in batches, making sure it only just wilts, not cook all the way through. She hears Lexa walking around her kitchen, her heels tapping gently against the floor as she figures out what goes where. Clarke guides her -  _ “glasses are in the cupboard in the corner, corkscrew should be in the second drawer from the right _ ” - and takes the noises she hears as good enough answers.

She’s just finished adding the whole of the chard when Lexa leans against the counter, right where she was cutting her eggplants, and hands Clarke her wine, sipping on her own as she eyes the progress in the skillet.

That right there is enough to make Clarke’s heart shrivel up to the size of a raisin.

It’s nothing, it’s just her date handing her a drink, it’s nothing new. But the way Lexa steps closer ever so slightly, giving an approving nod towards the garlicky smell wafting from the skillet, looking comfortable in such close proximity with the woman she didn’t want to see for all the tea in China only a few months ago- it gives Clarke hope. It makes her hope for something that seems almost attainable now, instead of a lost dream.

“How was your week?” Clarke asks without thinking as she accepts her wine, letting herself be driven by the familiar pull in her stomach.

Lexa blinks at Clarke, studies her for a moment as she sips her wine, before leaning away from her and telling her about some case that has been keeping her more than busy all week. Lexa doesn’t give away any more details than she should, but she tells Clarke about how her client isn’t ready to stand in front of a jury because he sweats more than a whore in church in prep - that makes Clarke snort in laughter, almost inhaling her wine - and he’s still a dick about it. Clarke listens to it intently, making a comment here and there as she finishes the chard and pulls the eggplants from the oven, just to toss them around and put it back in again.

They still have a little while to go before they can start assembling their pizza, so Clarke offers to give her a tour of the apartment. It’s almost pointless, because they can cross the whole length of it in two and a half steps, but Lexa nods politely, picks up her glass and lets Clarke lead the way. 

Clarke points to the living room as she circles the couch, biting her tongue to keep herself from saying this is the tidiest it’s been in about six months, and leads Lexa to her little art nook. It’s still messy, with canvases thrown haphazardly together and leaning against the wall, the ones still too wet to do just that adorning the glass wall that separates the bedroom from the rest of the apartment.

“Did you make these?” Lexa asks, walking slowly past the paintings on the floor, taking them in one by one just like she has done all those years ago when Clarke took her to her apartment for the first time. 

She stops in front of the one resting on the easel, the one Clarke had finished only two days ago, the oil paint still refusing the dry completely. It has muted colors and dark greys, an ocean turned rusty red in the sunset, but what draws the eye is the golden foil running under the low clouds, reflected in the water. 

Clarke has to force herself to stay still and not stir Lexa away from her paintings, her stomach dropping an inch every second Lexa looks at the piece - she wouldn’t feel so exposed if she had ripped all her clothes out right that second. “Yeah, I’m trying some new things out, these are the first ones I’ve made with the foil and all. I’ll get better at them.”

There’s meaning to the foil, there’s meaning to the dark colors being pushed away by glittering light, but it doesn’t seem the moment to go into all that.

So she stares at Lexa, her heart in her throat, until she straightens up again. “You’re great at them as it is,” Lexa says, turning to Clarke, motioning for her to go on with the tour, “I hope I get to see where you take it.”

Sipping her wine gingerly to hide her smile, Clarke takes a few steps towards her bedroom door, “I’ll be sure to show you my next pieces then.” She ventures a glance towards Lexa just in time to see her eyes widening ever so slightly as they dart from Clarke to what lays behind the glass panels, “Do you mind? I wanted to show you something that’s in here but I can bring it out.”

It’s understandable why Lexa would tense up at Clarke’s invitation for them to go to her bedroom, even if she didn’t meant anything by it. But Lexa nods and gestures for her to go ahead, lingering behind to take a healthy sip from her wine. The glass walls don’t offer much when it comes to privacy, which is something Clarke finds herself thankful for now, as she strides towards the opposite wall. 

“You still have your paintings leaning against everywhere possible.” Clarke hears from somewhere behind her and turns to find Lexa walking slowly along the canvases that litter the walls, her dresser, the end of her bed, a smile tugging lightly at her lips.

“It’s the best way to dry them- wait.” One word makes Clarke pause and turn fully around, the task at hand forgotten -  _ still _ . “You remember? My apartment back in New York?”

“I do, Clarke,” Lexa says, any trace of smile gone from her features as she finishes examining a piece perched on top of the dresser and and turns to Clarke. She holds her gaze for a moment that stretches out into infinity before finding a new painting to look at.

Clarke places her glass of wine on the nightstand with a shaky hand and takes a deep breath in before tugging at two large paintings from a row leaning against the wall, so colorful that they’re easy to pick apart from the bunch. “Here’s what I wanted to show you.”

Setting them both on the bed, Clarke watches as Lexa covers the distance between them, eyes on the canvases. “Oh,” she says in a tiny voice, before finding Clarke’s eyes “Are these Aden’s?”

“Yes. I varnished them and added the date on the bottom,” Clarke says, pointing to the neat numbers underneath a large and choppy signature that reads  _ ‘ADƎИ’ _ . Her son’s handwriting catches Lexa’s eyes and she traces the letters with the pad of her fingers. “I can take them to your car later, if you want it.”

“Why don’t you drop it off when you come over?” Lexa mentions almost offhandedly, like it’s an everyday thing, like it’s not a shift from where they stood weeks ago, “I’m sure he’d love to see you”

The invitation is there, clear as day. 

Her heart flutter in her chest, beating fast and light, shining hope into her whole being. Clarke can’t form any words, doesn’t trust herself to be able to make any sound at all, and simply nods, a smile beaming in her face. 

The oven beeps, indicating the eggplants are ready, before she finds within her to answer and Clarke simply nods, grabs her wine, leaving the paintings where they are as Lexa follows her back into the kitchen. 

It’s a quiet affair, putting the pizza together.

Lexa takes upon herself to take the eggplant from the oven and put the hot tray back on the cutting board, making room on the stove for Clarke to put the two skillets on top of it. Grabbing the cheese from the oven as Lexa finds tongs to get the eggplants, Clarke can’t keep the image of a thousand dinners made in perfect synchrony like this from her head.

_ Don't ask me what you know is true, I don't have to tell you I love your precious heart. _

The playlist Clarke had set up plays on, filling the small kitchen as they work in silence. Clarke ladles the sauce onto the pizza, spreading it over the dough, and Lexa tops it with provolone before turning to grab the eggplants as Clarke scoops the chard on the spots she left behind.

_ I was standing, you were there; two worlds collided and they could never tear us apart _ .

It’s nice. Their arms brush softly every time they move and Clarke hums along with the tune, remembering a time where she was singing along to a country song in the middle of New York. They work well together, they  _ fit _ well together. Clarke could get used to this.

Both skillets go into the oven and Clarke doesn’t really set a timer, just mentions that they should keep an eye on the pizzas and they should be ready by the time the cheese starts bubbling. She tops both of their glasses with more wine and leans against the fridge as Lexa leans against the counter once again and asks her what her week had been like.

Clarke struggles to breathe for a moment. It’s such a mundane topic, so viciously domestic that she can’t be sure her head won’t start floating away with how  _ light _ she feels.

She sips her wine, watches Lexa do the same, and tells her about summer school, and giving classes three times a week to kids who need to get credits to get promoted to the next grade. Clarke can’t keep the wonder out of her voice as she talks about how some kids took her class as an easy way to gain credits, a time to get homework done so they could enjoy their summer outside school, but she’s finding some hidden gems among the students. 

Lexa comments on this and that, scooting closer for some senseless reason, and Clarke soon goes to lean against the counter as well. And they stand side by side as Clarke talks about turning her class into a studio after hours and in between the summer classes, so whoever is interested in art but doesn’t have the materials to paint or somewhere quiet to do it without fear of getting messy can go a few times a week to work on their craft.

If Lexa hadn’t mentioned the pizza, Clarke would have left it to burn to a crisp.

Laughing softly at her clumsiness when getting the skillets out of the oven, Lexa opens a few cabinets until she finds the plates and cutlery, and Clarke brings one of the pizzas to the table. She takes an extra moment to arrange the flowers in their vase, setting it to one side so they both have enough room to move around.

They sit across from each other after Clarke plated each of them a slice and Lexa poured them more wine, and it feels  _ right. _ It feels like they’ve been doing this for years already and each of them finding a task to do without having to communicate to the other is a practiced dance they developed over time.

Lexa cuts a corner of her slice and chews the small piece gingerly while Clarke picks her own slice in her hand and bites into it - some little details never change. “Do you like it?”

“Yes, this is really something,” Lexa praises her, looking up from her plate to give Clarke a tiny smile before diving back into her pizza. She’s still focused on cutting the crust off when she speaks again, “It seems like your eating habits have changed quite a bit over the years.”

Clarke has just taken a too large bite and tries to chew it faster, but the surprise makes her give up and just mumble through her mouthful of pizza, “What?” 

Half frowning, half grinning, Lexa takes a sip from her wine before answering, “Last time we ate pizza? That sloppy Joe one still gives me nightmares.”

Oh. 

_ Oh _ . 

Lexa remembers. Clarke doesn’t have it in her to deny, not even to herself, that she hopped to bring some fond memories from their time together by making a similar dish. But she wasn’t expecting Lexa to be so open about it, to bring up their past like it’s not a gaping hole in both of their chests that they’ll have to work too hard to fill back up.

But Lexa remembers. And she remembers not only the pizza and how lousy Clarke’s eating habits were back then, but the way her paintings were everywhere in her apartment in New York. Both are simple things, little nothings that shouldn’t mean anything, but mean more than Clarke can put into words. 

Because that pizza, albeit worthy of a kid who was left home alone by their parents, had been the first step towards fully opening up to Lexa that Clarke took, a glance at what she is like beyond all the fancy and business sides of her job. 

Because Clarke taking Lexa to her apartment had been like crossing a final line, from where she knew she wouldn’t come back whole. It was her opening her chest and letting Lexa decide what to do with her heart. As it seems, it had meant as much to Lexa as it had to her.

Clarke swallows her pizza and her memories, turning to Lexa with a dead serious face. “I stand by what I said, that’s a solid pizza.” Lexa scoffs into her wine and Clarke smile, because while that  _ had _ been some incredible pizza, she doubts she’d eat it now, “But I guess they have. I eat like an actual adult now, not some college kid on a budget.”

“When did it change?” Lexa asks, her fork hanging halfway to her mouth for a moment before she takes the bite, and it warms Clarke to see her trying to keep the conversation going, asking questions and apparently enjoying her company. That’s more than she dared to hope.

“It was actually when I was back in college,” Clarke says, weighing her next words carefully. “Once I stopped juggling work and school, I had more time to think about what I was eating and more time to actually cook. That’s around the time I started eating more veggies, I guess.”

The word  _ work _ carries more meaning than it should, it feels heavy in her tongue.

“How was that like?” Lexa lets go of her fork, turning her attention fully to Clarke. The way she frames her question makes it so it could mean anything, and the idea of telling Lexa how she quit her job on their first date - at least, the first date that’s going well - makes her insides slosh and turn in something akin to fear.

She’s not ashamed of her past, and Lexa knows enough of it that there’s not much more she could say that would shock her. And this should be the easy part, her stopping to work as an escort to finally pursue what she really loved to do. But it opens a conversation - why couldn’t she have quit it a year before, why couldn’t they have pushed through those last few months of her working, why did she give up on them so easily.

Instead, Clarke takes the easy way out. “A guy in one of my classes was a vegan and he talked about it a  _ lot _ . Like, a  _ lot _ lot. But he had good arguments. He talked about our footprint in the planet, that eating processed foods isn’t good for you and how producing grains is a lot cheaper than raising cows.  _ And _ he brought good snacks to class. I guess, at some point some of it got to me.”

It’s a lot of senseless babble, and Clarke is aware of it. So is Lexa, by the amused look in her face when she nods and grins at Clarke. “No, I mean,” Lexa starts and Clarke feels her stomach dropping a few inches, grips her wine to give her some courage to launch into the talk they’ve been postponing. “Going back to college.”

Her eyebrows raises almost up to her hairline in surprise. Lexa wants to know about her master’s degree, nothing else. At least, not now.

A weight lifts from her shoulders and she breathes out, scooping new slices for both of them as she tells Lexa about college. She tells her, in between bites, how it felt weird at first, to be surrounded by people several years younger than her, who knew each other already and who liked things she couldn’t dream to relate to. She tells her how things fell into place, slowly but surely.

They’re all but done eating by the time Clarke finishes telling Lexa about the art undergrad classes she took to fill her days, classes that made her fall in love with teaching at the same time she fell back in love with painting. 

If Clarke has to blink her eyes dry more than once, she doesn’t really bother hiding them from Lexa.

“You can leave that, Lex,” Clarke says as Lexa opens the faucet after taking both of their plates to the sink, the nickname falling from her lips effortlessly, like it’s second nature. “Come on. I don’t want to waste our time together doing the dishes.”

Lexa lets herself be pulled away from the sink as Clarke extends a hand for her to take, tugging her close. Their hands remain linked for a moment too long, but then Clarke lets go with a last squeeze to put the leftover pizza away. She puts both skillets into the oven, trying her mightiest to keep her heart from leaping out of her throat, which proves to be a harder task than she thought it’d be.

Her heart is still hammering steadily against her ribcage as she finishes stacking all the pots and pans into the sink, letting water run over them.

“Can I ask you something?” Lexa says, her voice barely more than a whisper, something Clarke wouldn’t really have heard if she weren’t paying attention, if the room weren’t so quiet after the playlist ended.

“Sure,” Clarke half shrugs, absentmindedly drying her hands in a dish towel as she turns to face Lexa, a smile playing in her lips. They had asked each other so many things tonight already, it seemed almost silly to ask permission.

There’s a long pause, the seconds nearly turning into minutes, before Lexa speaks, “Was it easy?” 

Their conversation had been so easy this evening, bouncing from the present to the past without any awkwardness, without any heaviness to their topics, that Clarke has trouble following Lexa’s line of thought, “Was what easy?”

“Leaving me.”

Her breath catch in her lungs.

It's not that she's been blindside by the question. It's not that she hasn't felt it following them around, looming ever so close with each little thing Clarke got right, becoming more and more pronounced the more they tried to steer away from the topic. 

It's not that she hasn't expected the question. 

But to hear it from Lexa, in a voice so tiny that it took her a moment to realize she hadn't imagined it, makes something inside Clarke shrivel up, makes her forget that she had once rehearsed the answer for it. It gives her pause, scrambling for the words that seem to vanish from her brain at the sight of Lexa sucking her bottom lip in like a child who's not sure they should have done something and feels guilty for what they shouldn't.

It takes Clarke a moment to find the right words.

"It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to to," Clarke says, hoping her words ring as true as they feel. She doesn't want to rank the most awful moments in her life, the shittiest things she's ever done, the ones that made bile rise up to her throat and kept her from sleeping, but leaving Lexa would easily make the top three. "I spent a long time convincing myself to do it, convincing myself that I had to do it for your sake. And for mine," she pushes herself to say, to keep going until Lexa understands. She wants to take Lexa's hand into hers and make sure she understands, but settles for taking a step closer. When she speaks again, her voice trembles and falters, like her very soul does, "I fell for you, hard. Maybe harder than I had ever fallen for anyone. It was scary, but the good kind of scary. But I got too scared and ran away. And, sometimes, that seemed harder than anything else I've ever had to do."

Lexa nods as she takes the words in, searching Clarke's eyes for something - the truth or a confirmation that this is it, Clarke can't tell. A single moment stretches in between them, Clarke's breathing growing shallow as she waits for Lexa's answer. She feels her heart dropping into the abyss of her stomach, one that threatens to eats her whole if Lexa doesn't say something.

When she does, a moment and a lifetime later, it's not what Clarke had been expecting.

"If you could go back-" Lexa starts, her voice coming out hoarse, like the weight of the question sits on her vocal chords, but cuts herself off before she can get the whole question out, just a little too late. "Wait, no. Don't answer that. Let's just. Let's go to the living room."

Clarke indulges her. It's a difficult question, one that could go sour fast, one that could ruin whatever they've managed to build so far. She doesn't answer, not yet. Instead, she grabs the half finished wine bottle and follows Lexa to the living room. They sit side by side on the couch in a silence that isn't exactly comfortable, but they manage it for a moment as Clarke tops their glasses with some more wine and Lexa absentmindedly scans the books Clarke has lined up on her shelf.

She wants to tell Lexa the story behind each one - the battered copy of a novel she found in an used bookstore, the dog-eared poetry book she draws inspiration from, the hardcover travel book she can never open without getting wanderlust. But there will be time for it all, when Aden is napping in her bedroom after a Sunday lunch together. There will be time for it if she handles this right.

"If I could go back-" Clarke starts, feeling the words catching in her throat when Lexa looks at her. She had thought about this more times than she can count. She had acted out every scenario she could think of in the hours it took for her to fall asleep, fixing up every thing she'd done wrong. She swallows hard and forces herself to go on, now that she has Lexa's full attention. "If I could go back knowing what I know now and if I could guarantee that Aden would still be yours, I'd go back and fight for us," the words come out easily enough, because they're true, because she has thought of them time and time again. Go back and fight for us - some days, that's all she could think of doing, all she prayed she'd have the chance to do. "I'd ride out the end of the year festivities with all my anxieties and fears, then I'd sit down with you, tell you I loved you, tell you I was scared but that what we had was worth fighting for. We'd come up with a plan together and we'd stick together, through thick and thin, through all the years."

Tears fill Lexa's eyes, threatening to spill and roll down her cheek at the first blink. But Lexa doesn't blink, doesn't allow the tears to fall as she looks at Clarke with more fondness than she had ever before, "Clarke..."

"No, wait. Let me finish," Clarke settles her free hand on Lexa's knees and the warmth from her palm seems to sink through the fabric of her jeans and give her pause. Lexa looks at her, nodding ever so slightly for her to go ahead. "This is what I regret the most, all the time we've lost." Clarke watches as Lexa lifts her hand to catch a stubborn tear on her thumb, wiping it away. If her own eyes are growing steadily wetter, Clarke doesn't have it in her to even notice it. "In six years, I'm sure we could have figured out how to be together, the same way I figured out how to be on my own. I've grown a lot in these years. With bitter and hard lessons, I've become someone I'm proud of, and that's not something I'm willing to part with. But I could have grown all the same with you. I wanted to have grown with you, Lexa."

A moment lingers, heavy and rarefied, as they hold each other's gaze.

Then, after finding something in Clarke's eyes, Lexa nods. "You ruined us, back then. You know that, don't you?" Clarke takes her hand away, like that single touch is more than she deserves. "You ruined us and you ruined me. You fucked up, Clarke."

There's no anger in Lexa, not in her voice or in her eyes. She's simply stating the facts. Clarke ruined what they had and what they could have built. Clarke does know that, she knows that she fucked up - the curse word sounds odd coming from Lexa, but there's no better way to describe her actions back then - so she doesn't try to say otherwise. She nods, and accepts the blame she has carried for years now.

"Have I ever apologized for leaving?" Clarke asks after looking for it in her memories and coming up empty. She might have written something in the note she got Anya to deliver, but she could barely see through her tears while writing it, let alone remember so many years down the line.

"No."

Again, there's no anger to Lexa. Maybe some resentment, some bitterness at being thought of unworthy of something as simple as an apology after everything Clarke put them both through, but not anger. 

"I'm sorry," Clarke starts, and the words come easy, as if they have just been waiting for the opportunity to fall out of her lips. "I'm sorry for running away the moment things got hard, I'm sorry for breaking your heart." Her throat bobs up and down, willing the lump that has taken place there to let her get through this. It's stupid that she never did apologize. This is the one thing she should have done a long, long time ago. "I never meant to hurt you, but it's all I did and it's what I seem to keep doing. I'm really sorry, Lexa."

With a nod, a mere tilt of her chin, Lexa accepts her apology. "I have it in me to forgive you, I know that. And you are mostly forgiven. You've done enough to show me you're-" The words catches in her throat and Clarke watches her struggle to get them out, but Lexa clenches her jaw instead, steels her gaze, goes on a different route. "If you ever run away like that again, there will be no going back. I'll tell Anya to make good on her promise to murder you. I need you to understand that I have a child now, a child I need to care after and make sure doesn't suffer any loss before he has to." Her words cuts through Clarke and she knows, without a doubt, that Lexa will indeed make Anya slice her up to pieces and throw in international waters if Clarke ever dares to make Aden. "Right now, you're the cool lady with the pink hair for him. But if you become something more and even think about-"

"I won't," Clarke cuts her halfway through her sentence - she doesn't want to hear that, she doesn't want to even think about running away again, not when she knows how better life can be with Lexa in it. She shuffles ever so close, leans in just enough for Lexa to know she means it when she says, "I promise you that much. If we don't work out, it won't be because I got too scared."

Pause - the moment seems to hang above them, seconds slowly ticking by. 

Lexa searches her eyes for something and Clarke holds her gaze, watches it go from welded steel to soft waters. Then Lexa nods, once, and truly believes in Clarke for the first time in far too long.

Letting out a relieved breath, Clarke nods as well, takes a moment to make sure she understands what Lexa is saying, what she herself has promised to do.

It's not just Lexa now. She has Aden, a whole little life under her sole responsibility, someone whose happiness is above her own, is above anything and everything. And she's willing to let Clarke into his life, in a leap of faith - perhaps bigger than any other Lexa has ever taken - that she'll be good for him, that she's grown enough in these years to have her shit together, that she's ready to fight to protect Aden's innocence with the same fervor Lexa does. 

It's a big commitment. It's a huge thing to agree to. But then Clarke thinks about his precious giggle, as carefree as only a child's can be, how his tongue peeks out in concentration when he's painting, the way his sleepy self feels on her arms, drapped over her shoulder like no harm could get to him, trusting her with his safety like no one else ever has. It doesn't take much for her to realize she has already agreed to making sure nothing gets in the way of Aden having a beautiful childhood. She's already so viciously protective of him, after a day and a half with him, that she knows she'd fight tooth and nail before letting anything happen to him, definitely wouldn't want to be the cause of his pain.

They sip their wine for a moment, their eyes finding each other in the silence of the living room, and Clarke knows that she's ready for this and for all that it entails. It took her longer than it should have, but she's ready to dive in - and something in Lexa tells her she's not too late.

Settling her wine glass on the coffee table, Clarke shifts towards Lexa and turns to face her more fully. "Why did you go on a date with me, when I asked you out in the gallery?" The words fall from her lips as her hands fall on her lap and she doesn't really think them through before they're out there. "You clearly didn't want anything to do with me at that point, so why even go?"

Lexa sips on her wine once more, taking her time with it, before turning to Clarke as well. "I needed some closure. I wanted to hate you for good since I had never really managed it, before." Something in her voice makes Clarke fight a smile - Lexa couldn't get herself to hate Clarke, that has to count for something. "And you didn't make it too hard."

Clarke doesn't really fight the cringe worthy memories that fill her mind - she pretty much paraded all the brilliant things she had done without Lexa in her life, how much better off she was without her. She had gotten her message across in the worst possible angle. She grimaces, wincing at her own lack of touch. "That's true, yeah."

"And Anya kept pestering me, reminding me what I felt like for months after-"  _ you left me. _ The words never make it out of her lips, she simply purses them for a second and find new ones. "after New York, how much I still cared about you. I was so angry at her for giving you my home address without even telling me you were in town that I just needed one more reason to punch her."

Clarke pauses halfway through leaning her arm over the back of the couch, staring at Lexa with a big question mark in her eyes before letting her arm fall and her face contort in a worried expression, "You... didn't. Tell me you didn't punch Anya."

Smirking slightly as she settles her glass on the coffee table as well, Lexa shrugs, looks back to Clarke - and she can see a glint in her eyes before Lexa blinks it away, "I tried. She knows how to block."

Clarke half chuckles, half winces again, guilt and regret leaving a bitter taste in her tongue as she thinks back to showing up out of the blue at Lexa's doorstep and just... knocking on the door, and honest to God thinking it was a good idea.  _ What the fuck, Griffin? _ "God, that was- awful," she lets out another half chuckle, filled with more embarrassment than amusement, "I'm sorry about that as well, Lexa, I just- I'm surprised you didn't get a restraining order or something. Anyone else would."

Folding her hands on her lap, her back still painfully straight, Lexa looks at Clarke, tilts her head gently to the side, lets the ghost of a smile tickle her lips, "There's a reason I didn't and I think you know it."

Clarke does know it. Even then, even with Clarke coming back from the dead just to slice back open wounds that had long scarred, Lexa still cared about Clarke, something within her still hoped that they could make it work, against all odds. Maybe they still can make it work.

Fighting against the monster raging in her chest, Clarke slides a trembling hand over Lexa's, squeezes it ever so softly, lets herself smile back, "I should not have done that. I should have tried something a little more sane instead of dooming the whole thing to fail."

"You really should have," Lexa says in a stern tone that doesn't quite feel like a scolding, like she knows Clarke realizes any other route would have been a better alternative - finding her firm in the book and making up an appointment, accidentally running into her on purpose, anything. But Lexa simply turns her hand over so their palms press against each other, her fingers lightly grazing Clarke's wrist, "But maybe it was something we had to go through. I'm almost convincing myself to believe that those years apart were also something we just had to go through."

Clarke doesn't say anything, content in just feeling Lexa's skin against her, adoring the way she mindlessly draws little infinity symbols on the skin of her wrist. "What about now?" she asks, looking up from their joined hands, finding Lexa already looking at her. "Do you think we're still doomed to fail?"

Lexa thumb presses against her pulse point, and the way her eyebrows shoot up ever so slightly tells Clarke that she feels the way it picks up as she waits for an answer. When she tugs gently at Clarke's hand and answers her, her voice is barely a whisper, "I think we might have a shot at it, after all."

They might have a shot. 

Clarke feels herself smiling before she realizes how the words make something in her chest break out of its cage and bloom - hope, she's allowing herself to have hope again.

When she leans in, Lexa meets her halfway.

Their kiss is soft and sweet at first, almost chaste with lips pressed against lips as Clarke finds within her to stop grinning like a schoolgirl. Lexa turns her hand in a way that lets them link their fingers together, pressing into the kiss ever so slightly when Clarke takes her bottom lip in between hers, but it's enough to make Clarke almost burst into tears, into pieces.

She's ached for this, she ached for so long. She has lost count of how many nights she fell asleep wishing she hadn't screwed everything up, wishing she could have her arms wrapped around Lexa after kissing her goodnight - a kiss just like this, gentle and loving, that lingers just enough to make sure the love falls through.

Lexa breaks the kiss just long enough for her to let out a shaky breath against her cheek and Clarke allows herself to think that maybe, just maybe, Lexa has ached for this at well.

Their lips meet again and Clarke deepens the kiss almost instantly, barely having to ask for any permission before Lexa welcomes her, lips already parted, their tongues meeting at last and bringing out soft gasps. It's too much at once - their breaths mingling together, their hands linked tightly, the push and pull of their kiss.

They after just a moment and Clarke finds Lexa's eyes, sees her own hunger reflected in them. Part of her - the rational, boring part of her - wants to draw back, to move on and talk about something other than their shared past, to keep things breeze and light. But the better part of her - the part that sees the way Lexa's eyes dart to her mouth, her own lips parted and inviting - wants so much more.

Letting go of her hand and wrapping an arm around her middle, Clarke allows herself to pull Lexa close, consequences be damned. She just wants to feel Lexa, feel more of her and for longer, long enough that it feels like they've never parted at all.

Lexa half tumbles into her lap, steadying herself with an arm on the back of the couch as she finds her footing, as Clarke leans back into the couch and watches the woman she never stopped loving hovering above her. 

Lexa finds her lips again in a mixture of tenderness and need that no one else could have managed, one trembling hand finding her cheek, another pressed firmly on the long line of her neck. Clarke lets her guide the kiss, lets her demand whatever she wants from her, gives her it all - the kiss is slow and languid, all gentle nibbling and playful teasing, and there's nothing in the world Clarke would trade this for.

A soft gasp leaves her throat when Lexa swipes her tongue against the roof of her mouth and Clarke lets her hands wander until one rests on her lower back, drawing her ever so close, and the other finds the spot right under Lexa's ribs. She can't remember how this came to be her favorite spot, but when she presses her palm into it in response to the way Lexa hiccups when Clarke pulls her bottom lip in between her teeth, she's reminded just why it remains her favorite spot - she can feel Lexa's heartbeat against her palm, fast and wild, drumming so hard her very ribs seem to shake.

Between combusting right there and then, and letting out a shivering gasp, Clarke chooses to break the kiss and draw back. 

The sight that greets her just might be her new favorite thing. She finds Lexa all but panting, a blush steadily crawling up her neck towards her ears, her lips half open and kiss swollen, eyes hooded as they struggle to focus on anything but Clarke's own lips. She knows she can't look much different than that - she can feel her own breathing just a notch down from ragged, her lips raw and sensitive, her skin burning everywhere it meets Lexa - but Clarke takes a moment to appreciate how fucking beautiful she is, how open Lexa is in that moment, how willing to just keep going, how much like home she feels.

Sliding one arm around Lexa's middle to keep her in place, Clarke lets her free hand trail up Lexa's side, up her arm to come and rest on her cheek. She runs her thumb over her bottom lip, relishing in the way her eyes flutter closed, before pressing one last kiss on her lips.

"Is it okay if we take things slow?" 

Her voice is so breathy that even she has a hard time believing that's what she really wants, but Lexa nods, blinks away the want in her eyes, "Of course."

She tries to scurry away and put some distance in between them, but Clarke pulls her back to her, keeps her in place - she still wants Lexa close. "It's just that we rushed into it before and it-" Clarke takes a deep breath in, steadying herself against how her body reacts to Lexa. "Well, it got too much too fast. I want to do things right now."

Lexa nods, understanding. They rest their foreheads together, catching their breath, and Clarke wants to joke about hoe they both look like teenagers who are just making out for the sake of it, just out to get to know each other and learn what make them feel good. Instead, Clarke catches her lips once more, allowing herself to smile into the slow kiss as they sink into one another.

When they part and Lexa does fall out of her lap, it's not in the awkward way teenageers often do this - they're still themselves, sitting side by side and much closer than before, their hands linked together as they talk about little nothings in whispered voices.

Clarke tells her about moving some of her own work and painting supplies to the school, so she can get some painting done in between the very few classes she's giving during the summer, and maybe have some of her students come join her to have painting sessions together. Painting is something she mainly likes to do alone, so she can be as weird about it as she likes, but the company might be good. Lexa runs her fingers up Clarke's arm and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, asks if maybe one day she could see Clarke painting. Clarke leans into her touch, nods and if she's too overwhelmed to try and say anything else, she doesn't hide it. 

There's a lull in conversation after Lexa tells her about her plans for the week - prepping her client for court and drafting a new contract for another one, which should take most of her days. Lexa takes the moment to run her fingers over the side of Clarke's arm and tilt her wrist towards her to see what time her watch shows. Almost ten.

"It's getting late, I need to go home and let Harper go," Lexa says with determination in her voice, but doesn't make any effort to get up. Instead, she takes in her wrist watch, runs her thumb over the leather strap, touches the skin beside it. "Is this the watch you told me about? Your dad's?"

It gives Clarke pause. 

She has kept this watch to herself for so long that not even her mother knows she has it. She kept it hidden even from herself for years, when it got too painful to even look at it, but dug it out of her things once she had settled into this apartment. Clarke looks at the watch, the infinity symbol glowing softly in the dim light in the place where the number twelve should be, then looks back at Lexa. It surprises her that Lexa remembers such a tiny detail, something she herself had forgotten she had mentioned to her, and it takes effort for her to nod.

"I got it from a box of things that were supposed to go to good will, I couldn't let go of it," Clarke says, letting go of Lexa's hand to take it off her wrist, "I've been using it more and more lately. It's more of a piece of my dad that I get to keep close than a reminder that he's dead."

Lexa accept the watch gingerly, like she's holding something precious. Her thumb grazes the numbers on the outer ring for a moment, then she flips it over, reads what's engraved on the back. "May we meet again."

"My mom got it for him when she started residency and he went across the country to oversee a project for a few months," Clarke offers without prompting, giving Lexa a glance into the part of her life she hadn't been privy to up to this point - something Clarke wants to change, "I used to love hearing the story of how they spent months apart and still found their way to each other."

Clarke holds her eyes for a moment, letting the weight of her words settle comfortably in between them.

Dipping her head, Lexa takes the time to wrap the watch on Clarke's wrist, buckling it back in place. "It's a good thing to hold on to, it's a good memory to have." Clarke nods, a faint smile gracing her lips as Lexa gets up and reaches out her hand for Clarke to take, "Thank you for dinner."

Clarke lets herself be pulled up to her feet and if she lands a little closer to Lexa than she should, neither of them seem to mind. "Thank you for coming," Clarke says in a heartfelt way, her hands still wrapped around Lexa's, "Thank you for giving me another chance."

"We both deserve that chance, Clarke."

They walk to the door with their pinkies still linked, just a small connection that keeps them anchored together - it still leaves Clarke in genuine awe that she gets to do this at all. Lexa gathers her things while Clarke opens the door for her, and, like it's something they've done a thousand times before, they lean in to kiss each other goodnight. It's a soft kiss, something barely more than a peck, but it's enough to leave Clarke aching and her heart hammering against her ribcage.

Closing the door behind Lexa after sending her away with another kiss and telling her to give Aden her love, Clarke takes a deep breath.

Her lips still taste like Lexa.

She can't really tell when her soft smile turned into a grin, but she doesn't mind it - she's so insanely happy she could throw up, she wants to jump up and down until all this giddy energy becomes something she can handle with more grace than a schoolgirl in love. But she doesn't mind it, she doesn't mind it at all.

Walking to the kitchen so she can do the dishes, because there's no way in hell she can fall asleep right now, Clarke pauses to set up a new playlist. She needs something with a stronger beat to it, something she can dance to while cleaning up, something that isn't all acoustic guitars and gentle whispers like the one she set up for their date. 

Their date.

Clarke is halfway through picking the songs when her phone pings with a new message. The notification goes away before she can read who it's from, but she could put her money in Raven checking in on them, using the worst innuendos known to mankind. She's already thinking about her answer, something along the lines of 'a lady doesn't kiss and tell, but I have a hickey that can speak for itself' - which she doesn't, but Raven doesn't know that and she feels like being funny -, when she opens the message app only to realize it's not Raven.

It's Lexa.

_ 'Would you like to drop Aden's paintings on my office on Tuesday? We can go on a lunch date after.' _

Lexa is asking her out on another date. It's been less than fifteen minutes since their first date ended, and Lexa is asking her out on their second one. Clarke had thought about waiting a day or so before coming up with a flimsy excuse to call up Lexa and ask her out. She had anticipated the nerve wracking experience that would be, even if their date had gone better than simply well, and she had convinced herself that she'd find a way to get through it nonetheless. But Lexa texted her first. Lexa is asking her out.

Another message comes through -  _ 'If you're up for a second date, that is.' _

Clarke has to laugh at that, and a chuckle is still bubbling in her chest when she answers it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND THEY ARE FINALLY TOGETHER!!! [throws confetti, sounds party blower, turns music on for dance party]
> 
> It won't be smooth sailing from here on out, but I can tell you the worst is behind us.


	8. a whole lot of firsts — part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After all the hurting, here comes the pure and unaltered fluff everyone deserves. Just- happiness abound!
> 
> This chapter is bound to be _massive_ , so I thought it'd be better to split it into two parts than to keep you guys waiting for too long.

The days where she could get through an entire one hour kickboxing class with a barely noticeable increase in her heart rate seems like a distant delusion as Clarke drags two large painting from the elevator, her breaths coming out in ragged puffs. This is as much cardio as she gets these days, but the sharp pain in her side tells her it's not nearly enough.

Taking a moment to catch her breath when tiny dark spots show up in her vision, Clarke smooths down the kraft paper wrapping both paintings, securing the knot in the twine keeping it in place. It serves both as a protection against the weather and to give it a more mysterious vibe for when Aden gets it - she imagines him ripping the paper with his tiny fists and being awed by having his paintings back. 

The thought puts a smile on her face.

Clarke grabs the painting and wills her muscles to hold it up as she makes her way towards the front desk on the floor where the three head lawyers have their offices. The chairs meant for brief waiting are all empty, the only sound in the room being the secretary typing away on her keyboard. "I'm here to see Lexa."

The woman barely spares her a glance before clicking something in her computer, "Do you have an appointment with Ms. Woods?" Her voice suggests that she's familiar enough with Lexa Woods' schedule for the day to know very well that she doesn't.

"Um, no," Clarke stutters, trying and mostly failing to think on the spot. The secretary - Gaia, her name tag says - gives her a studying look, as if waiting for her to either tell her what she's doing here or leave. "I just told her I'd come by. To give her something."

"Name?" she sounds bored, annoyed at Clarke for interrupting her tasks.

"Clarke Griffin."

Gaia grabs the phone and types what should be the extension line for Lexa's office, resuming her typing and only stopping when Lexa picks up. Clarke only hears one side of the conversation - Gaia all but warning Lexa that there's a certain Ms. Griffin here that doesn't have an appointment - but the way her face falls is quite telling.

There's a beat before Gaia tells her to go inside and Clarke can barely hide her smirk as she drags the paintings towards the door with a plaque that reads 'Lexa Woods, Attorney at Law'. She knocks once before opening it more with her shoulder than anything else and settling the paintings against the heavy wood a second before her arms give out on her - she definitely needs to start working out again, anything that won't make her look so weak in front of the girl she's trying so hard to impress.

She takes a moment to get her breathing under control, because this is honestly ridiculous, and, before she can look around the office for Lexa, her voice floats towards her, with a hint of amusement to it. "Hello, Clarke." 

"Hi. The paintings are heavier than I thought they'd be," Clarke answers, smiling sheepishly and watches Lexa smile back, feels her heart blooming at the sight. It's nothing much, just a slight tilt of the corner of her mouth, just a glint in her eyes, but it's everything. She has to take yet another deep breath to steady herself, but for a completely different reason now, "I don't think your secretary likes me that much."

Lexa crosses the distance between them, strutting from her desk with both her hands on her pockets, her chin up, her whole being exuding a power that Clarke is dying to give in to. "She might not, but she doesn't have a say in whether or not you can come in without a set appointment," Lexa says, but Clarke registers little more than half, her eyes darting from Lexa's heels to her rolled up sleeves to the flesh her two undone buttons show. "Which you can and are welcome to."

The vulnerability to her voice brings Clarke back to the present, forces her to find her eyes. "Oh," Clarke lets out with an exhale after a moment, when her words finally sink in. She stops feeling underdressed in her jeans shorts with oversized tee tucked inside and lets herself feel all the fondness and devotion Lexa is offering her. "Can I-" the words catch in her throat and she swallows them, tries again, "Can I kiss you hello?"

Lexa's smirk becomes a gleeful smile as she closes the distance between them completely. She slips one hand out of her pocket and sinks her fingers into Clarke's hair, brings her closer and closer until their lips meet. Heat shoots down her spine when Lexa tugs at her lips with hers, drawing back ever so slightly before kissing her again. 

It's only when they break apart that Clarke finds her waist and uses it as an anchor when Lexa whispers against her lips, "Hello." Clarke lets out a breathy chuckle at how silly they must sound and wraps her arms loosely around Lexa in a half hug, tilts back to look at her. She takes in the perfect eye makeup that contrasts to the smudged lipstick and feels her smile faltering, which Lexa picks up on almost instantly, "What?"

Clarke leans into a hug, bringing Lexa closer to her - because she can, because, oh god, she's allowed to. She buries her face on the crook of Lexa's neck, breathing her in before voicing her worries in a ghost of her usual voice, "Do you have any regrets, so far?"

Wrapping Clarke in a hug, Lexa takes a moment to trace her spine up and down, in a calming motion that has Clarke wishing they could stay like this forever, before she answers, "No, that was a pretty good kiss."

The joke works. Clarke snorts a laughter and shakes her head against Lexa's shoulder before drawing back just enough for her to be able to see Lexa. "No, I mean- About us," Clarke croaks out and watches as Lexa grows more serious, "Getting back together, going on dates, kissing in your office. Aren't we rushing into things?"

"I think we've waited long enough. More than enough," Lexa answers in a heartbeat, her fingertips still trailing lazily on Clarke's back. "What I feel for you, what I felt do you all these years-" 

She cuts herself mid sentence, a wild look in her eyes, her hands grow still.

Clarke smiles despite herself, unable to keep all this emotion to herself. "I'm not gonna run away if you talk about your feelings, Lex," the nickname falls easily from her lips, as do her words, "Mine hasn't gone away either."

"Then we're good. So far," Lexa nods, once, "I wouldn't say there are no hard feelings we need to work on, but it's... nice, to enjoy the novelty of all this." With a soft smile, Lexa untangles herself from their hug, extending her hand for Clarke to take, "Are you ready for lunch?"

"Yes," Clarke answers, intertwining their fingers and letting Lexa take her wherever she wants.

X X X

Leaning against the wall on the entryway and waiting for the door to open, Clarke knows she's pouting. 

She can feel her bottom lip jutting out just enough to make her look like a child who didn't get what they want as she scrolls through the thread of messages she has exchanged with Lexa. Their texts have increased ever since she spent the day with Aden, going from practical and quick informations about their dates to full on conversations that only end when one of them falls asleep without saying goodnight. The last few texts, received little over half an hour ago, are the reason why Clarke is pouting to begin with.

"We were gonna watch a movie, but Lexa is stuck at work," Clarke says in lieu of a hello when Raven opens the door, halfway through tying her hair in a ponytail. Clarke can hear how pitiful her own voice sounds, but she's not above feeling sorry for herself.

"So I'm your consolation prize?"

The offended scoff is amusing at least and Clarke shrugs. "Yeah, pretty much. But I brought booze."

At the sight of the six pack Clarke holds up, Raven relents and opens the door wider, walking back inside without waiting for Clarke to follow her. "If that's the case, come in. I'll make popcorn. What do you wanna watch?" They walk past the living room and into the kitchen and Clarke can't help but take notice of how fluid Raven's walk is - her new brace is doing its job, "I'll even hold your hand and pretend I'm Lexa."

"You're a good friend," Clarke says, hoping she sounds thankful rather than guilty, knowing very well that title doesn't apply to her. They haven't seen each other this week because Raven had physical therapy every evening to help her adjust to her new brace more easily, and it usually leaves her drained and moody, wanting nothing more than a bath and her bed. Clarke has done enough damage as it is. "Lexa texted me half an hour ago and I was already ready, I didn't want to waste it."

"Wait, she texted you?" Raven turns around so fast that it spooks Clarke, washing away every thought from her mind at the sight of Raven's eyebrows all but vanishing into her hairline.

"She... did," Clarke croaks out, placing the two beers on the counter and putting the others in the fridge. When she closes the door behind her, Raven is still looking like she's just found out Lexa is the Zodiac Killer, "Why is that so surprising?"

"Because Lexa doesn't text," Raven answers, finally snapping out of it and opening the cupboard to get popcorn. "I've known her for almost a fucking decade and she hasn't texted me once. She calls, everyone, for every little thing, because texting can never get the point across," her voice becomes deeper in that last part, a very close copy to what Lexa sounds like when she's being all serious.

Clarke chuckles at that, opening both beers and handing one to Raven after she sets the microwave and pops the popcorn in. "I got her to even text me emojis," Clarke teases - granted, it was the smiling one that looks like it's about to murder you and she does not get why Clarke likes the peach emoji so much, but Raven doesn't need to know that, "I guess she likes me more than you."

"Clearly," Raven says, dryly, and takes a swig from her beer. She leans on the counter and takes a moment staring at Clarke before speaking in a conspiratorial tone, "But okay, spill everything, gimme the dirt. The date, the sex, the talk you must have had because boy, did you fuck her up. Start with the sex."

It makes Clarke almost choke on her own beer. Sex has never been a taboo topic with her, for obvious reasons, but talking about sex - or the lack thereof, - with Lexa stirs something inside her. She can feel heat rising up her neck as she stutters out, "We haven't actually-"

"What, why?" Raven asks when she trails off, unable to bring herself to say the words. The surprise in Raven's voice makes Clarke study her for a moment. She looks like she knows that Clarke used to be an escort, but there's no way for her to know that - Clarke has made sure to leave that part of her life as shady as possible, barely talking about her years in art school and beyond that.

Taking a sip from her own beer, Clarke answers her in a strained voice, "We're taking it slow."

"Six years is slow enough, woman!" And just like that, Raven is back to being Raven. She laughs at her own joke, which eases Clarke's nerves a little, and says with mock interest, "But fine, tell me about all the hand holding."

It's almost ridiculous, how paranoid Clarke is. 

Raven knows her for what she is now - the high school art teacher with the art gallery that's going surprisingly well and making her consider renting out a spot for a more permanent endeavour, the lovesick woman who ran away on Lexa when things started to get serious and she got scared and is trying her hardest to win what they had back, the faithful friend who loves to drink beer with her and listen to her science related rants that can go on for forty minutes straight. 

Raven doesn't know what made her run away, how much she paid to become an artist. Raven doesn't know Clarke is the reason why her heart got broken and she got into an accident that made her life so much more difficult. Raven doesn't know that her blood is on Clarke's hands. 

Guilt is threatening to swallow her whole and Clarke has to gulp down her beer to calm her nerves enough to go on. But she does tell Raven, her best fucking friend, about her dates with the girl she's loved for so long. And as she talks about cooking together and walking out in the sun holding hands, Clarke wills herself not to spill everything she's ever done wrong right there and then - there's a time for it, she'll find a time for it, but this isn't it.

She's halfway through talking about the face Gaia made when Lexa told her she'd be taking a long lunch when the three bags of popcorn Raven swears they'll eat are ready, and they take everything to the living room.

Raven drops down on the floor, which is a clear sign of how good her leg feels, and picks up the remote, flying through Netflix catalog until she finds something they both want to watch. Clarke doesn't want anything romantic and Raven refuses to watch any horror movie after their last one left her awake and praying for three whole nights, so they settle for a sitcom. Clarke comments that she hasn't watched Brooklyn 99 yet and Raven almost jumps in outrage, pressing play without bothering looking at Clarke.

They make it through almost five episodes before the door opens and Anya marches inside, barely sparing them a look as she walks towards her office, looking like she's already run her fingers through her hair in frustration more times than it's healthy. The door closes with a soft thud and both Raven and Clarke glances towards it, watching transfixed as Lexa walks in, phone in hand - texting.

She looks up when the sound from the TV filters through her focus, her thumbs still hovering over her keyboard when she takes Raven in first, then Clarke - and everything else falls away. "Hi."

Clarke gets up from the floor with less grace than she had planned. She was going for one fluid motion from sitting down to being on her feet, but her joints crack and she needs to hold on to the couch to get up, stumbling for a moment before finding solid ground. Ignoring Raven's snort and her not at all subtle 'smooth, Griffin', Clarke walks towards Lexa and places her palm under her rib cage, getting on her tiptoes to place a kiss on her lips.

"Hello," Clarke whispers against her lips, enjoying the few inches Lexa's heels give her. She looks up and Lexa looks down with a small smile playing on her lips, and that alone makes her feel safe. "I didn't think I'd get to see you today."

"I was about to text you," Lexa says, pressing their lips together again before putting some distance in between them, more for Raven's sake than anything else, and pockets her phone, "We decided to split things so we could work from home."

"So," Clarke starts, trying to make her voice sound as natural and unaffected as possible, knowing she's failing hard, knowing she'll get an earful from Raven as soon as they're alone, "You're leaving soon?"

"Yes. I still need to finish it before morning, but I need to let Harper go," Lexa explains in a low voice, tucking a strand of hair behind Clarke's ear.

A few popcorn kernels hit the side of her head and Clarke frowns at Raven when she shouts, like they're not eight feet away from her, "Do you two want a room?"

Lexa ignores her completely. "I could give you a ride home in a bit, maybe," she whispers in a soft voice, as if they haven't been disturbed at all, and Clarke turns back to her just in time to see doubt flash through her green eyes, "If you want."

"That would be nice," she answers in a blink, nodding and not even bothering to try to hide her smile. She thinks about driving together, the street lights casting a soft glow on them, Lexa's hand resting on her thigh much like she used to do back in New York, both of them talking about their day, making the most of the twenty minutes they get together.

Before Clarke can voice any of it, an impatient Anya shows up in the hallway, her hair tamed into a braid, anger starting to simmer in her eyes as she snaps her fingers at them, "Woods, chop chop."

Looking like a child that has just been scolded, Lexa nods, once, and lets go of Clarke, following Anya into her home office. Clarke feels cold wash over wherever Lexa had just been touching her and she drags herself back to the couch, plopping down to wait for her to be ready to go.

"You two are nauseating," Raven says in a disgusted voice and Clarke can't even tell for sure if the gagging sound she makes is fake or not, "If I knew you'd be like that, I would not have helped you at all."

"Shut up."

X X X

Clarke rattles her knuckles on the front door, loud enough for whoever is in the living room to hear, soft enough that she won't wake Aden up if he's taking a nap - she isn't even sure if he still takes naps, but better safe than sorry. 

It takes her back to six months ago and how the same soft knocking sounded like fists banging on hollow wood, in the same staccato rhythm as her heart. She still has a clear picture of Lexa answering the door - arms crossed tightly around her middle like a shield, her walls tumbling up faster than Clarke could dream to keep up with, sweatpants and a decade old tee looking like a goddamn armor. She remembers the chill that ran down her spine when Lexa spat out words that were meant to hurt, in a voice so cold it seemed to freeze her very blood.

They've come a long way since then. And this time, she knows she's welcome inside.

This time, she doesn't have to wait almost a full minute for someone to come to the door, her insides sloshing around, simmering in the nervous energy she's been building up for six whole years now. This time, it's only a moment before two voices answer her almost at the same time.

"We're open!" Aden yells, his voice chirpy and high pitched, and a giggle follows suit.

"Come on in, the door is unlocked," Lexa says right after, amusement tinting her tone. Clarke can imagine her running her fingers through Aden's soft hair, always a little too long and nearly reaching his eyes, and bending down to kiss his forehead.

She opens the door and slips inside, finding pretty much what she had pictured, a smile slipping into her lips before she even knows what's going on. Clarke doesn't even have to cross the foyer to find Aden and Lexa sitting on the floor, surrounded by too many toys. They're sitting in between the stairs and the couch, on the hardwood floor instead of the soft rug just a few feet away, and Aden looks as happy as he can be sitting cross legged in front of a colorful register, holding fake plastic money on his chubby hands.

Clarke doesn't wait for an invitation as she sits across from him, folding her legs beside her and looking at the array of toys spilled on the floor - she finds everything, from tiny pans and pots that she's pretty sure it's real cast iron to police cars with the sirens blinking blue and red, and she can barely make sense of it all. 

"Hi," Clarke murmurs at Lexa, holding her eyes for a moment to long. She looks lighter, like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders and it might just be because it's Sunday and she gets to spend the whole day at home with her son, but Clarke wants to believe she has something to do with it as well. She wants to lean in and kiss her, like they've been doing all week whenever they run into each other, but she doesn't know how much Aden knows. Instead, she turns to him as he slams the bright purple lever so the money drawer opens, "Hello, Aden. What are you guys doing?"

"Playing grocery store," he answers promptly as he puts the bills he was holding inside the drawer and closes it, handing Lexa her plastic pizza slice. "Wanna play?"

It's like she's a four-year-old herself and he ran into her on the playground, decided to make friends. "Sure, yes," Clarke nods, settling into her customer role, "What do I do?"

"I'm the cash- cha- cashier," Aden stutters, the word stucking to her tongue before he rolls it out. Then he grabs a plastic corn, a single ear that's too tiny even for him, and hands it to her, "You're buying the corn and the sauce."

She takes the corn ear and reaches for the sauce - a real one, made out of glass, filled to the brim with marinara and definitely too big for him - that's sitting near Lexa and looks up, asking in a volume only she would hear, "What am I cooking?"

Lexa chuckles, taking the oranges - two real ones, one fake - that Aden hands to her. "Get ready to pay up," she teases, reaching behind her and giving Clarke a few plastic bills, "The prices in this grocery store are exorbitant."

"Yes, exorbiant," Aden says with confidence, puffing his chest out as he takes the corn from Clarke, types the price on the register and sets it aside, doing the same with the sauce - it's too heavy and Lexa has to help him settle it safely on the floor, and the move from the rug seems to make a lot more sense now. "That would be three hundred dollars and a loonie."

Clarke loses track of time as she and Lexa take turns buying whatever Aden tells them to, until they've made it through all the items in his little grocery. The prices really are insane and the owner won't let them choose what they want to buy, but Clarke does get a good deal in the police car - only fifteen dollars, when a single watermelon goes for other a thousand. She gets so into it, trying to get discounts and playing different customers with different voices to get Aden to laugh, that she doesn't notice Lexa scooting over to her until they're side by side, only a few inches keeping their legs from touching. Her breath catches in her throat as Lexa reaches around her to grab a banana bunch and brushes her back, then presses her palm on the same spot as she leans forward to hand it to the kind sir ringing them up.

By the time all of the items are paid for and waiting for them to take it all home on the little shopping cart resting against the couch, they have a joint account - Lexa got tired of splitting their money everytime Aden said something cost more than either of them had and just bunched them up together - and their hands are clasped together. Aden doesn't seem to find it weird. He doesn't seem to notice it at all as he gets up and tucks his register to the side, thanks them for shopping in his store and takes the cart, pushing it towards the backyard so he can put it away for them, pausing on the door to ask if he can have some juice.

Lexa nods as she gets to her feet in one swoop motion, telling him she'll bring it out in a minute and he can go ahead before turning to offer her hand for Clarke, who's still half sitting on the floor. Clarke takes her hand and gets up, with a lot less grace than Lexa just did, but she doesn't even mind it when Lexa closes the distance between them. 

It's supposed to be a quick kiss, just a peck on the lips to say hello in the proper manner. But Clarke can't let go. She closes her lips around Lexa's bottom one and sucks on it gently, runs her tongue over it, lets her hands find their way to her waist and her jaw, keeping her close. Lexa sighs into it and grips her shirt, tugs her closer, opens her lips to grant entrance. 

Before they can deepen the kiss, Clarke breaks it, takes a step back. "I've been wanting to do that for a while," she shrugs, only half meaning it as an apology, "I didn't know if Aden-"

Her words hang in the air and she doesn't finish the sentence as Lexa nods, understanding. She shoves her hands on the back pockets of her tailored shorts, "He doesn't know, not yet."

Not yet.

Those two words are enough to make Clarke smile, "Do you want help making his juice?"

Clarke mostly watches as Lexa brings out a juicer and takes out carrots, peeled oranges, mangoes and berries from the fridge. It still amazes her that Lexa, the one who couldn't make toast without burning half the house down, can cook and even something as simple as making juice is enough to have Clarke watching in awe. Lexa pours some juice for them in glasses and for Aden in his sippy cup, like she knows he won't stay still to drink it and it'll end up all over his shirt if he gets a regular cup, before leading them towards the backyard.

It’s big enough to fit a picnic table, a grill and a playground set, complete with swing and slider. Aden is setting the groceries on the bench closest to the lawn, organizing the items by size, humming a song that must be from a cartoon judging from the upbeat tone. They make their way to the picnic table, Clarke sliding to the far end as Lexa gives her son his juice, having to all but snap her fingers to make him realize she's there - apparently, being able to have a razor sharp focus on the task at hand runs in the family.

Clarke sips her drink and watches Lexa wrapping Aden's fingers around the sippy cup handle and guiding it to his mouth as he gets a few plastic fruits from his cart, and the sight alone makes her smile. Lexa is an incredible mom. Clarke never doubted she would be, not after watching how she was with her friend's daughter, in a Christmas party that felt like had happened in another life altogether. But to see her surrounded by toys in a house that feels like home, feels lived in and filled with love, it really drives the message home. Lexa was always meant to be a mom. 

And she doesn't let herself wonder if they'd still be here if she hadn't ran away.

Instead, she imagines Lexa working the grill as Aden runs around the backyard, pulling Raven or Anya or even Gustus to play with him, all of them taking turns to keep him entertained. Would Lexa even drink beer in her own barbecue, or would she prefer to keep it classy and sip her wine like a proper mom? Would Clarke still be around when she threw another barbecue? Would she be in charge of the grill or would that task fall on Clarke as Lexa busied herself with side dishes and bringing everything to her? Clarke hopes so.

She peels her eyes away from the grill, pausing for a moment on a honest-to-god herb garden, and turns to Lexa. She wants to ask about those barbecues, want to hear Lexa laugh as she tells one story or another, but the sight she finds gives her pause.

The vacant stare combined with the deep frown in between her eyebrows worries Clarke and she has to force herself not to overthink what it might mean. 

"What's wrong?" Clarke asks in a voice low enough that Aden won't hear, but he's finished with his groceries and has ran towards the swing set to drink his juice. She pushes her drink aside and scoots closer to Lexa, putting a hand on her thigh to bring her back to the moment.

Lexa blinks and works her jaw, from one side to another, her lips jutting out in a pout. "I'm taking Aden to see Luna this week," her voice comes out in a whisper and she wraps her fingers around her glass, running her thumb up and down the condensation that threatens to fall down so she doesn't have to look at Clarke.

"I thought-" Clarke starts, pausing for a moment to find the right words. They hadn't talked about Aden's birth mom ever since Lexa told her he was adopted, all those months ago, when every word was meant to hurt her. "I thought you guys got along well." Her words come out in a half question, enticing an answer. Clarke can't help the tightness on her chest, how she wants to wrap her arms around Lexa and tell her she will beat Luna up if it comes to it, no questions asked - it's hardly the most appropriate way to show her worry, but she doesn't like the way Lexa's mouth turns downwards.

"We do," Lexa nods, still refusing to look at Clarke. She looks up and Clarke follows her gaze - Aden is gingerly putting his half empty sippy cup on the grass before running to the swing again, "And they do as well." Lexa sighs and lets her shoulders sag, closes her eyes to take a deep breath. "I guess I'm just... a little reticent about the day I tell him she's his birth mother."

There's so much vulnerability in those words, in the way Lexa lets go of her always so stoic façade and threatens to crumble in on herself.

Clarke scoots just a little closer, runs her thumb in little circles on the skin just under her shorts, tries to find the right words. They don't come easily - she's spent too many years on her own, being anything but kind to her own issues, never having anyone to comfort her. But she tries. "He's still too little for that, isn't he? Has he started asking about it?"

Lexa shakes her head and bites the corner of her bottom lip, "No, he's okay with the story I tell him for now." Her breath comes out raggedy, shaking with the effort she's putting in not melting down completely. It worries Clarke as much as it soothes her - they're okay, Lexa is comfortable enough to show what she must think is her weak side. "But one day, he'll want to know who his real mom is."

Those words snap something almost feral inside Clarke. She frowns and leans closer, reaches up to tip Lexa's chin towards her until she gets her to look into her eyes. "You're his mom. Don't ever doubt that," Clarke says slowly and deliberately, making sure Lexa understands it. "You changed every diaper, endured every tantrum, you're the one he wants when he's sick or when he gets hurt. He's yours." A tear tumbles out of Lexa's eye and Clarke wipes it away with her thumb before it can roll down her cheek, "Luna may have given him birth, but you're his real mom."

Lexa inhales sharply and nods, closing her eyes before she closes the distance between them, kissing her with more urgency than she has so far. It's over quick, but Clarke feels the wetness fresh new tears leave in her own cheek. She wipes them away again, holds Lexa's face in between her palms, watches her calm down slowly, surely. 

It's only when they turn back to their juice, growing warmer under the summer sun, that Clarke realizes that Lexa does believe her when she says she's his real mom and no one can take it from her. Aden is none the wiser to what just happened a few feet away from him.

X X X

It's early.

Clarke has never truly been a morning person, never understood how people could genuinely enjoy waking up before the crack of dawn just to see the first rays of sunshine, or how they could get anything done at all when it was still dark outside and everything was still. The morning is still good when it starts at nine, and she made sure to get out of waking up before then as often as she could. That's why all her classes were in the afternoon and her job as an escort worked so well for her. 

It's easier to stay up until six than it is to wake up at six. Even more when it's summer, and school is out, and she's finally found a comfortable position to sleep in after breaking her thermostat and accidentally turning her apartment into a furnace.

But Lexa asked her out on a breakfast date, because she has a busy week and Wednesday at the crack of dawn is pretty much the only free time she had. So Clarke said yes without even considering that her body had already gotten very much used to waking up past ten and her late night painting sessions might render her useless in the morning. 

So, she set her alarm for an ungodly hour - and five others, because there's no way in hell she'd wake up after one single alarm - and dragged herself out of bed, the only thing keeping her from collapsing back on her mattress was the thought of Lexa looking all soft and sleepy, the early sun casting lovely shadows on her. But that's only true when Lexa used to wake up in her arms, in her tiny apartment filled to the brim with half finished paintings, under the window with the shades that never really fully closed.

She sways on her feet during her much needed two second nap and Lexa presses a palm on her waist to steady her. "Is everything alright?" 

Her voice is soft against her ear as they take another step closer to the counter, the line so long Clarke starts to wonder if it's worth it. She blinks, half trying to wake herself up, half willing to sleep right there, and shifts closer to Lexa, leaning into her touch. "It's early."

"It's seven thirty," Lexa points out flatly, the slightest hint of amusement tinting her voice. It's pretty much half the morning for her already, because she does wakes up before the crack of dawn to get everything ready for the day, get her workout in and get started on whatever task she has at hand as she waits for her nanny to get there to watch over Aden - she only half heard all this because Lexa got chatty in her post workout adrenaline rush and Clarke could still feel her bed hugging her.

"Early," Clarke whines, and turns on the spot, leaning against Lexa's shoulder. Lexa adjusts her grip around her waist and Clarke smiles, closes her eyes, buries her nose in the crook of her neck. 

Even their clothes are painfully different - Lexa is honestly ready for court, a fancy blouse tucked into her pristinely ironed dress pants, Clarke barely bothered to change from pajamas to a slouchy tank top and shorts, too sleepy to put anything other than flip flops on. But Lexa doesn't seem to mind as she slides her hand under her shirt, pressing her palm to the warm skin of her back.

Lexa leans down, kisses her temple, half lulls her back to sleep. "Aren't you usually at work by now?"

"To be honest, more often than not I just skid past the kids and get to my classroom half a minute before eight," Clarke mumbles her answer, and she knows she smells like sleep the same way Lexa smells like expensive lotion. Neither seem to mind that.

Chuckling amusedly - too amusedly for such an awful hour, in Clarke's opinion -, Lexa has to all but push Clarke so they can take a step forward in line. "You're not a morning person, are you?"

Clarke kisses the soft skin behind Lexa's ear and breathes her in, then pulls back and tries to look alive. "Never were, don't think I'll ever be."

Blinking the sand away from her eyes, Clarke straightens up, but doesn't dare to take a step back when Lexa doesn't make any effort to let go of her waist, just adjusts her grip so they can stand side by side. It's a gesture that is as overwhelming as it is mundane. They're dating, they're comfortable with each other, it's not a big deal to stand so close, to keep their hands on each other. But all of this seemed like such a far fetched dream a few weeks ago that Clarke can't help the way her stomach lurches forward to accommodate the million or so butterflies springing to life.

Lexa doesn't seem to mind it when Clarke hooks her thumb on the loop of her dress pants to keep her close as well. 

"We could have passed on this breakfast date and see each other during the weekend," Lexa says after long enough that they're next in line, and Clarke doesn't particularly care for the worried tone in her voice. She pulls away from her, turning to make sure Lexa is looking at her and ready to hear what she's about to say, to know how much she means it.

"But this is you. If I had to wake up at four in the morning to see you for fifteen minutes, I'd do it. You're worth the pain," Clarke says in a whisper that only they can hear, and knows she's said the right thing when Lexa presses a kiss to her lips, in a way that says more than words could. Clarke has spent too long craving Lexa - her touch, her voice, her company, all of her - that any excuse to have her near, is one that she'll use. "I just need to get some coffee in me. And maybe some bacon."

She's mostly awake by the time their order gets to their table.

They've found one near a window, with a view to the streets, and Clarke can see the flux of people dying down as everyone grab their coffees and hurry out to work or wherever they need to be so early in the morning. Lexa excuses herself to place a call, something she needs someone to get started on before she makes it to the firm, and Clarke is content to just sit there and watch her talking with big words and urgent tones, finds it that it soothes her to see how Lexa changes, grows softer when their eyes meet.

The waitress places their plates in front of them and Clarke reaches for her coffee before it ever makes it to the table. She needs her caffeine. Lexa smirks and thanks the waitress for the both of them, grabs a fork to cut into her pancakes without pouring maple syrup over it - which seems like a capital offense, coming from a born and raised Canadian. 

"So," Clarke starts, setting her coffee down and picking up a crispy slice of bacon, "Do you always take your ladies to breakfast dates?"

They were bound to talk about their past relationships, so it's better to just rip the Band-Aid right off. At least, that's what Clarke tells herself as she bites into her bacon and tries to convince herself she managed to smooth them into the topic - which she didn't, she knows that much, and it makes her want to shove the words back down her throat. She remembers the last time they talked about their ex lovers, how that bumpy conversation ended up with both of them with tear stains in their eyes and nearly scarred-over wounds open wide again.

A quirked eyebrow it all the reaction Clarke gets at first. 

Lexa takes her time settling her fork down and chewing the bite she had just taken, narrowing her eyes before she answers. "You're not as discreet as you think when you try to pry into my love life," she teases, more than anything, and picks up her own coffee, "In fact, you're not subtle at all."

Letting out a nervous chuckle at the way Lexa's lips quirk up, Clarke takes a moment to let the awkwardness wash over her - the last time she tried to ask Lexa if she were single, she ended up with her foot in her mouth and a clapback that still stung. "Hey, give me a break. I've just woken up," Clarke says, trying to keep the mood lighter, "But it's something that would come up sooner or later."

"Fine," Lexa sips at her coffee, lets the pause in between her words grow long enough that Clarke almost thinks she'll start telling about said ladies, but then she simply wraps her fingers around her mug and nods for Clarke to go ahead, "You go first."

Well, that's fair.

Clarke nods, taking a deep steadying breath as she wipes the bacon grease off her fingers. It's too early and she's never really managed to get a hold of her tongue when it's too close to sunrise - late nights and early mornings, that's when the truth just pours out of her.

"I didn't quit working as an escort for another year or so after you... hired me," Clarke starts, nerves pulling her heart into ten different directions at once. Her words sound odd to her own ears, but like a Band-Aid, it was better to just go for it. "I knew what I wanted to do next, career wise. But it wasn't really doable if I didn't put some money away to have a safety net to fall on, you know?" There will be a right time for them to talk about her work, about what pushed her to move on from it, the inner workings on her quitting, but for now, she simply brushes past it, "Well, when I did move and stopped working, I threw myself into studying and working. I'd had enough sex to last me three lifetimes, I wasn't in any hurry to get into anyone's pants."

With a silent thanks to the universe for the coffee shop being pretty much deserted by now with no one else around to hear her talking about how much sex she's had, Clarke makes herself pause - more to steady herself than anything else, to make sure she can get through the words the way she needs to; to give Lexa time to steady herself as well, if that's something she needs. 

It doesn't bother her to talk about sex. It never did, that's one of the reasons why she were so good at her job. And she knows Lexa were never too comfortable with it, doubts that she's grown very fond of talking about it in the last few years. But, regardless of what Lexa told her in between her sheets, with nothing but each other making up their whole world, Clarke needs to make sure her sleeping with hundreds of people and getting paid for it isn't a deal breaker.

Lexa doesn't say anything, just puts her coffee down and lets her hands rest on her lap, nodding once, giving Clarke permission to go on. 

The words that fall from her lips were long way coming, but it doesn't mean that they don't leave scorch marks in their wake. "And I wasn't ready to open up to anyone, not the way I had done with you. What we had was so intense it gave me whiplash in the months after. I knew no one could ever beat that, I knew I wouldn't go out there to find it either."

She pauses, blinks away the stubborn tears that threaten to pool into her eyes, and looks up to meet Lexa's eyes. Clarke had forgotten what it feels like to strip naked and lay her heart open to someone, to know with full confidence that it won't get hurt or rejected for being what it is. It's been so long since she's talked about her feelings without any self deprecating humor behind it or in a therapist office, that she had forgotten what it's like to see her own soul reflected back to her.

In that moment, as the world stay still and Lexa is all that matters, Clarke knows she isn't the only one who felt like that.

Gritting her teeth against the pounding of her heart, Clarke takes a deep breath and lets the words tumble over one another, "But, it gets lonely, to focus on work and nothing else. That's when I tried something. I took a girl I shared a class with out for a date, we hit it off, it was okay, I guess. But I never called her again and things got awkward. After that, I went to bars whenever it got too bad, found someone to keep my bed warm for the night, shooed them away before breakfast." Clarke needs to get through it and put it all in clean plates, but she doesn't want to give more details than she needs to. "I went home with six, maybe seven people over a few months. Then it started reminding me too much of work, so I just quit even trying. I realized, after a lot of therapy and a lot of self loathing, that I had to be okay with myself before going after dates. And that casual sex didn't work for me anymore." 

That's the end to her wild story - she gave up on casual sex and finding a relationship was the last thing in her mind, she's been celibate for three years and counting.

Clarke only remembers she's supposed to be having breakfast when Lexa picks up her coffee and takes a healthy sip from it, as if wetting her throat before making a comment about the whole story. She grabs her own avocado toast and goes for a bite, pausing halfway through her mouth to say, "I did find solace in my vibrator though."

She doesn't know why she says it - maybe to lighten up the mood after such a loaded discussion, maybe because sex humor is still funny to her - but the moment her words are out of her mouth, Clarke wants to put them right back. Lexa widens her eyes as she scrambles for a napkin at the same time she forces her coffee down her throat, and she only just puts her coffee down before she can finally catch her breath and start coughing. Because of course, Clarke's timing is impeccable and she had to make that comment right when Lexa was swallowing her coffee.

Leaving her own chair and sitting down on the one closer to Lexa, Clarke reaches out for her, stops short when Lexa shakes her head and turns around to cough with renewed effort. It's a solid three minutes before it calms down enough that Clarke can put a hand on her knee and make her look at her. "Are you okay?"

"I- Yes," her voice is hoarse and her eyes are filled with tears, but it does seem like the worst of it is over, "The story just took a turn I didn't expect, that's all."

Clarke lets out a chuckle, and nods. It was supposed to have a much more serious ending to it, but she hadn't lied - heavens know she's been making her way through an array of vibrators and her collection is getting out of hand. She bites the corner of her lip, dragging it in between her teeth before she finds it within her to say something, "Did I... Did I say too much? Did I ruin everything again?"

"No, Clarke, you did not," Lexa says, her voice back to its normal tone after a few attempts to clear her throat, and it's as soothing as it could be, "I think this is what we should have done to begin with, if we ever wanted this to work."

Maybe not laying out her sex history and definitely not the vibrator comment, but Clarke gets what she means. If they had talked, if they had been open about their feelings and worries and fears, maybe it would have worked in between them. It seems to be the key for them to make it work now.

"You don't have to say anything. Okay?" Clarke assures her, leaning closer as she squeezes her knee gently to make sure she knows she means it. If Lexa isn't ready to share, she's willing to wait. She'd wait forever for Lexa. "I guess this is something I needed to get off my chest, but you don't have to-"

"I want to," Lexa cuts her off mid sentence, clasping her palm over Clarke's hand, "This is a two way street, isn't it?" It's a rhetorical question, so Clarke doesn't bother answering, simply turns her hand around so their palms are laid flat against one another and their fingers can intertwine. It's as close as they can get in a coffee shop, but that link seems to be enough for both of them. "I went on a blind date a few months after we ended things. Anya knows how everything went down, but it was Raven who pushed me into meeting someone new, found someone she thought I'd like and set it up. She was fine, she was sweet but she wasn't- She wasn't you."

Oh.

Clarke spent so long looking for Lexa in everyone she saw, trying to find her in the smallest gestures and most peculiar mannerisms, yet she never imagined Lexa could be doing the same. 

She runs her thumb over the back of Lexa's hand, wanting to say something but trusting the touch to get the message across - I feel it too, we're on the same page. Their eyes meet and the softness around Lexa's is enough to let Clarke knows that yes, Lexa knows she feels it too.

Nodding once, Lexa seems to map her face for a moment before carrying on, "We stopped seeing each other after three dates. I tried a few more times, but those relationships were doomed from the start. After Aden came into my life, I stopped trying altogether. I didn't dare to put someone into his life when I knew it wouldn't last," she says it all almost in a single breath, like she wants to end her story quicker and Clarke doesn't blame her. She can't help but feel special to know that she is in Aden's life, and it must mean that Lexa believes in them as much as she does. At last, Lexa untangles their fingers and presses a soft kiss to her cheek, her voice lighter when she finishes, "So no, I didn't bring my ladies to breakfast dates. And ours will be ruined if we don't actually eat the food."

Clarke lets out a chuckle and pulls her plate close to her, refusing to leave her spot for somewhere that won't let her touch her arm so often or reach out to catch a little bit of syrup that hangs on her lips after her next mouthful of pancakes. They move to lighter topics as they make it through their breakfast, like what book Aden chose to read last night and a new song Clarke is obsessed with.

When they leave the coffee shop and head down to Lexa's firm, with their hands linked together and the song Clarke talked about blasting through the earbuds they're sharing, Clarke feels lighter, closer to Lexa, and something she can't quite name yet brewing in her core.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [Tumblr](http://sassymajesty.tumblr.com), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/sassymajesty) and also [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/sassymajesty) now! You're all more than welcome to reach out and send me a message - it can be all yelling, I swear I don't mind as long as you're nice. 
> 
> On Tumblr, you can find sneak peeks for upcoming chapters, as well as other tidbits, like gifsets and oh, spoilers I give in whatever message that gives me room for it! And if you want to know more about my writing and other stories, I put everything together in a page [here](http://sassymajesty.tumblr.com/writing)!


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